Sri Mulyani: Our Economy Is Beginning To Recover, But Don't Be Happy Just Yet

Minister of Finance, Sri Mulyani. (Photo: Instagram @smindrawati)

JAKARTA - Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani Indrawati said that the recovery and reversal of the trend from contraction to positive conditions in several sectors in the third quarter must be carefully guarded because they are still in the early stages.

Minister of Finance said this must be done as the economy in the third quarter began to recover, seen from the production side which experienced a reversal and from the demand side also experienced improvement.

"We have to be very careful because the recovery or trend reversal from contraction to positive is still in its early stages," he said in an online discussion, quoted from Antara, Thursday, November 19.

Sri Mulyani said that the processing, trade, transportation, warehousing, construction, accommodation industries that are facing heavy pressure due to COVID-19 showed a reversal even though they still grew in the negative zone in the third quarter.

Then there are three sectors that continue to experience positive growth despite the COVID-19 situation, namely agriculture, information and communication, and marine services.

Meanwhile, two sectors that are still experiencing pressure are mining and financial services because the banking sector is still under pressure from the disbursed credit performance.

"We are happy that there will be a reversal, but this will not be guaranteed to continue if not everyone is involved in maintaining and pushing for recovery," he said.

Therefore, the government is currently focused on building an economic foundation to be productive and competitive in order to maintain the momentum of the reversal so that fundamental reforms are carried out.

He mentioned that one of them is to continue and accelerate the strengthening of structural reforms related to the quality of human resources, debureaucratization, deregulation as well as economic transformation.

"The State Budget instrument will continue to support and we carry out reforms in terms of state revenues, taxes and customs, PNBP, state expenditure, central KL expenditure and TKD and will continue to maintain financing," he said.

Sri Mulyani is also optimistic that through various efforts to maintain the momentum of the recovery, this year's economic growth projection in the range of minus 1.7 percent to minus 0.6 percent can be achieved.

"All projections really depend on how in the third and fourth quarters there will be recovery," he said.