Nailul Huda Regrets Lack Of Understanding In Efforts To Strengthen Purchasing Power In The Vice Presidential Debate

Three vice presidential candidates appeared in different clothes in the second debate of the 2024 General Election (photo: dock. inter)

JAKARTA - Economist Center of Economic and Law Studies (Celios) Nailul Huda regretted the debate between vice presidential candidates (cawapres) regarding the economic growth target that did not explore efforts to strengthen people's purchasing power.

"Formers of gross domestic product (GDP), the largest of which is household consumption. However, it is unfortunate that the focus is not on strengthening people's purchasing power," Huda told ANTARA in Jakarta, Saturday, December 23.

However, he appreciated the vice presidential candidates for bringing the Incremental Capital Output Ratio (ICOR) discussion to the debate stage.

ICOR is the ratio between additional capital needed to generate additional output or output. High ICOR shows that investment in a country costs a lot of money.

Vice Presidential candidate number 3 Mohammad Mahfud MD said that the vice presidential candidate number 1 Muhaimin Iskandar or Cak Imin deviated from the formula regarding economic growth targets, especially related to ICOR.

He criticized the ICOR target pursued by the Anies Baswedan-Muhaimin pair of 4 to 5 points, while economic growth was 5.5 to 6.5 percent per year, when they should have been able to achieve the economic growth target of up to 7 percent.

Meanwhile, Cak Imin replied that his party prioritized realistic targets so as not to burden the development process in the future.

Meanwhile, Huda believes that there is an extra encouragement to be able to reduce the ICOR number.

The high ICER was discussed earlier and that's good because our ICOR touched the level of 6.7. Need an extra push to be able to press ICOR to 4-5 points," he explained.

He also supports efforts to eradicate corruption conveyed by Mahfud MD. According to him, these efforts can help overcome the ICOR problem.

The second debate for the vice presidential election in 2024, Friday night, raises the theme including the people's economy, digital economy, finance, investment, taxes, trade, management of the APBN and APBD, infrastructure, and urban areas.

The series of debates for the 2024 presidential election is still scheduled to take place three more times, namely on January 7, 2024, January 21, 2024, and February 4, 2024.