Sri Mulyani's Subordinates Convey The Good News: Omicron's Impact On The Economic Sector Is Not As Deep As The Delta, Mobility Is The Key

JAKARTA - The Fiscal Policy Agency (BKF) of the Ministry of Finance, Febrio Kacaribu, predicts that the impact caused by the COVID-19 omicron variant to the economic sector will not be as deep as when the delta variant spread in the middle of last year. According to him, there are a number of indicators that form the basis for this assumption.

“The Omicron case has a lot of differences with the delta. Although the daily cases are increasing very sharply, this is not followed by a high hospital occupancy rate," he said at a virtual press conference on Tuesday, February 22.

Febrio added that other optimism was also seen in the movement of people who tended to remain active along with the increasing awareness in complying with health protocols in the new normal situation.

"Many regions are now in level 3 community activity restrictions (PPKM) but the indicators of community mobility are not corrected too deeply like when the delta occurred," he said.

However, Sri Mulyani's subordinates hope that the public will not be careless and always obey the government's recommendations to apply health discipline in their daily activities.

"We must remain vigilant in the situation of a pandemic that is not over yet. The government will also look at various other economic indicators. Indeed, since the beginning of February it has been leveling off, but this is still a bit early considering the estimated peak is still in March," he explained.

Citing data released by the Ministry of Finance, it was stated that the outbreak of the Omicron variant earlier this year caused mobility to be slightly corrected. Even so, the mobility of January-February 2022 is still much higher than the first quarter of 2021.

"We believe that economic growth in 2022 will still be strong enough in the first quarter of 2022 and is estimated to be in the range of 5 percent. So that the prediction for the whole year of 4.8 percent to 5.5 percent can be achieved," closed Febrio.