Economic Growth In Quarter II-2022 Reaches 5.44 Percent, Sri Mulyani's Men Are Optimistic In Quarter III Can Be Higher: But Still Beware Of Uncertainty

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Ministry of Finance)

JAKARTA - Head of the Fiscal Policy Agency of the Ministry of Finance (Kemenkeu) Febrio Kacaribu estimates that economic growth in the third quarter of 2022 will grow higher than the second quarter of this year. One of the factors is looking at various available data, such as the manufacturing sector to trade which continues to recover.

"There are signs that economic growth in the third quarter will be quite strong, maybe even a little stronger compared to the second quarter of 2022 which grew 5.44 percent (yoy)," Febrio said at the online BKF Tanya event, quoted by Antara, Monday. August 8th.

Even so, there is still uncertainty that the government continues to watch out for because various changes occur not only from month to month, but often even from day to day.

He gave an example, in the past week the price of palm oil has fallen below 100 US dollars per barrel, to be exact around 80 US dollars per day.

Therefore, these various changes are continuously monitored, in addition to the trend of economic recovery whose activities are already well above pre-pandemic levels. In fact, economic growth is also seen accompanied by a very strong recovery in the MSME sector.

"This is what we always want to see from the government side. I have said that poverty must continue to decrease, as well as the unemployment rate must continue to fall," he said.

Thus, in the midst of the uncertainty, he is optimistic that the domestic economy will tend to grow towards the upper limit of the 5.1 percent to 5.4 percent range in 2022 as a whole.

This projection is in line with the government's energy compensation and subsidy spending which reaches Rp500 trillion this year to maintain people's purchasing power and ensure economic recovery, especially consumption so that it can continue to run.

Furthermore, for 2023, Febrio estimates that growth will still be in line with the target of the government's agreement with the House of Representatives Budget Agency, which is with a lower limit of 5.3 percent.