Faisal Basri: Chaotic, The COVID-19 Pandemic Has Made 115 Million People Fall Into The Abyss Of Poverty

Indef's senior economist, Faisal Basri. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - INDEF's Senior Economist, Faisal Basri said, the COVID-19 pandemic that has occurred since the beginning of the year has made the world chaotic. The pandemic also limited community activities, stressed the business world, and even increased the poverty rate.

Based on World Bank or World Bank data, said Faisal, the world poverty rate was increasing. In fact, 115 million people are recorded as entering into the abyss of extreme poverty.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has also resulted in 88-115 million people falling into extreme poverty. The conditions are very tough," he said in a virtual discussion, Tuesday, December 8.

Not only increasing the poverty rate, said Faisal, the COVID-19 pandemic which has spread to 218 countries and territories, and infected 68 million people, more than 1.5 million people worldwide and 19.3 million people are still positive, making trade sector weakened.

"The world is chaotic world trade is expected to decline 9.2 percent this year," he said.

Faisal said, the declining trading volume is expected to rebound next year. Even so, it still hasn't reached the pre-pandemic state or level.

For your information, in Indonesia alone the poverty rate is also predicted to increase sharply. Executive Director of the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef) Tauhid Ahmad explained that Indonesia's poverty rate in 2021 is expected to increase along with the current COVID-19 pandemic outbreak.

According to INDEF calculations, the poverty rate will increase by 10.5 percent in 2021. The poor is projected to increase by around 1 million people, so that the total number of poor people is estimated to reach 28.37 million.

"The assumption is that the National Economic Recovery program is not strong enough to withstand the decline in consumption of the poor and vulnerable to poverty," explained Tauhid in the 2021 Indonesia Economic Projection Webinar, Monday, November 23.

Furthermore, the unemployment rate will also increase. Indef predicts that the number of unemployed people will increase by 3.6 million, to 10.4 million in 2021 with a percentage of 7.8 percent from 4.99 percent.

The details come from 2.5 million new workforce who are not optimally absorbed and 1.1 million workforce that are still not absorbed due to the impact of COVID-19.