The Ministry Of Trade Said That The Indonesian Economy Would Slow Down 0.23 Percent Due To Coronavirus

Ministry of Trade Building. (Irfan Meidianto / VOI)

JAKARTA - Head of the Trade Research and Development Agency (BP3) of the Ministry of Trade, Kasan, said that Indonesia's economic growth this year is predicted to experience a slowdown of around 0.23 percent. This follows an estimate of China's economic decline of 1 percent as a result of the corona virus outbreak.

The Ministry of Trade's prediction is lower than the World Bank which estimates that the Indonesian economy will decline by about 0.3 percent. "My team's calculation is not 0.3 percent. Every 1 percent of China's GDP (gross domestic product), the decrease in Indonesia is 0.23 percent. Not entertaining, but based on scientific facts," said Kasan in Jakarta, Tuesday February 11th.

Thus, continued Kasan, if China's economic growth fell from 6 to 5 percent, then Indonesia's economic growth which was pegged at 5.3 percent this year was also calculated to be corrected.

In addition, Kasan noted that the impact of the corona virus will also target Indonesia's export and import performance in January 2020, as well as in a number of other countries.

"Yesterday's session, the Customs and Excise of China have not released what exports, what imports. However, there are several countries that are also our trading partners who have released their data in January, all of which have decreased, and it is very significant," said Kasan.

According to Kasan, several countries whose export and import performance were affected were Brazil, Vietnam, South Korea, Chile and Pakistan.

"So, there are about 5-6 countries that have published January data, generally exports and imports fell. And the biggest was Brazil, which decreased by double digits. Korea also fell. Korea even said in its release that one of the causes of the decline in exports and imports was caused by a virus. corona, "explained Kasan.

This is because some activities in China have stopped and trade transactions will automatically be affected. Kasan added that the 2020 world economic growth projection does not take into account the impact of the epidemic corona virus, especially when it occurred during the Chinese New Year celebrations in China.

Therefore, the corona outbreak is a new challenge for the world economy that will be felt in various countries.