Coordination Meeting For Inflation Control: These Are Jokowi's Five Orders To His Subordinates

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo is known to hold the 2023 National Coordination Meeting (Rakor) for Inflation Control at the Merdeka Palace in Jakarta by inviting a number of relevant ministry/institutional leaders.

In a press conference, Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto said that Indonesia's current inflation is 3.08 percent, much better than several G20 countries.

This is the result of a strong synergy between the government, Bank Indonesia (BI), local governments, and the Central/Regional Inflation Control Team (TPIP/TPID).

According to Airlangga, the inflation control strategy is focused on four K, namely price affordability, supply availability, smooth distribution, and effective communication.

"Mr. President emphasized that we must be ready to face El Nino's challenges in the future, namely (maintaining) food reserves in the center and regions. One of the critical is related to rice," he said.

However, Airlangga explained that the government's rice reserves as of August 2023 were 1.5 million tons.

"So it's still relatively safe. There are still around 400,000 to 500,000 tons of rice to be held by the end of the year," he said.

On the same occasion, BI Governor Perry Warjiyo revealed that the President praised the performance of national inflation control which he called one of the best in the world.

"In Indonesia, we synergize (with various parties) very strongly," he said.

Perry said the Head of State directly gave five instructions. The first is data integration, especially food data between regions. Second, increasing cooperation between regions to provide food supplies.

Number three is smooth distribution. Fourth, increase market operations. And the fifth is how we improve central and regional communication efforts," said Perry.

Similarly, Minister of Home Affairs Tito Karnavian said that the President ordered the current handling of inflation, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It was done intensely, in detail, and completely mapped. On that basis, we will cooperate with the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) because BPS has networks in all districts/cities. Usually (BPS) conducts surveys once a month, but we will ask for the survey to be once a week," said Tito.

"Well, with that data we know which areas are high and low inflation. Thus the investment will be appropriate," he said.