2023 Budget Coordination Meeting, Ministry Of Finance Focuses On Quality Expenditures For Economic Transformation

The Ministry of Finance (Kemenkeu) held a National Coordination Meeting for Budget Implementation (Rakornas PA) FY 2023 to describe the ministry/institutional strategy (K/L) in improving the quality and performance of productive APBN expenditures.

Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani said that this step is expected to have an impact that reaches and directly touches the entire community in various aspects of life, so as to be able to support inclusive and sustainable economic growth.

According to the Minister of Finance, the government is focusing on a strategy to increase the effectiveness of economic transformation, supported by holistic fiscal reforms through income mobilization for fiscal space widening, consistency in strengthening spending better for spending efficiency and effectiveness, and continuing to encourage the development of creative and innovative financing.

"The emphasis on quality/spending spending is continuously raised as part of the government's strategy in formulating and implementing fiscal policies every year," he said on Wednesday, May 17.

The Minister of Finance explained that the 2022 State Budget has succeeded in encouraging improvements in various development indicators, including economic growth with strong and stable trends, increasing the Human Development Index (HDI), as well as reducing poverty and unemployment rates.

In addition, the trend of improvement is expected to continue along with improving leading indicators, increasing post-pandemic community mobility, continuing various National Strategic Projects, and increasing the flow of PMA to Indonesia.

"The challenge continues to direct and improve quality in spending, in this case it means that in supervising the bureaucracy we can run according to national development priorities," he said.

The Minister of Finance added that the importance of quality spending in the implementation of the APBN. He said, during the COVID-19 pandemic, quality spending was crucial due to the narrowness of fiscal space due to the refocusing of the APBN for handling extraordinary circumstances.

"For this reason, improving the quality of spending becomes a necessity for the government. State spending must be directed to produce quality outputs, provide tangible benefits for the community and the economy, and can encourage conditions in a better direction," he said.

For information, until the first quarter of 2023 the performance of the State Budget is still maintained positive. The state revenue reached Rp647.2 trillion or 26.3 percent of the APBN which increased by 29.0 percent from the realization of the same period in 2022.

Meanwhile, state spending has realized IDR 518.7 trillion (16.9 percent of the state budget), an increase of 5.7 percent compared to the previous year.

For this performance, the realization of the State Budget in the first quarter of 2023 recorded a surplus of IDR 128.5 trillion or 0.61 percent of gross domestic product and primary balance was also recorded to have a surplus of IDR 228.8 trillion.

"I am grateful to all ministries/agencies and even local governments who will continue to innovate and creativity in managing their budget in terms of value for money. How every managed rupiah produces the maximum possible impact on the community," closed the Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani.