Sri Mulyani Reveals COVID-19 Recovery Around The World Is Slow: Due To Uneven Vaccine Access

Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani Indrawati revealed that the global economic recovery due to the COVID-19 pandemic around the world is currently happening, although unevenly, one of which is due to uneven access to vaccines throughout the world.

"There are countries that even today have less than 3 percent of their population vaccinated, in African countries. On average, poor countries are only 6 percent of the population, while developed countries have vaccinated above 70 percent or even close to 100 percent and they have done boosting," said Sri Mulyani in her statement at the Splendide Royal Hotel, Rome, Italy, Saturday, October 30, after accompanying President Joko Widodo at the G20 summit in La Nuvola.

In addition to unequal access to vaccines, she said, the world's economic recovery is also threatened by two other things, namely rising energy inflation and supply disruptions.

According to Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani, as reported by Antara, this is happening in all countries whose economic recovery is very fast despite experiencing complications in the form of rising energy prices and supply disruptions.

"What does that mean? When demand recovered quickly and strongly, it turned out that supply did not keep up," said Sri Mulyani

Furthermore, the Minister of Finance explained that the increase in energy occurred very quickly because investment in the energy sector, especially non-renewable ones, had fallen sharply in the face of soaring energy demand due to the economic recovery. This has led to high inflation in various countries.

"This is a threat to global economic recovery. Indonesia also needs to remain vigilant against the possibility of such seepage," said Sri Mulyani.

Because COVID-19 is a real threat to the world economy, continued the Minister of Finance, in discussions between finance ministers and health ministers of G20 countries it was agreed to build a mechanism called pandemic preparedness.

"Today the world is not ready to face a pandemic. In fact (the pandemic) has cost up to 12 trillion US dollars, 5 million people died, and more than 250 million people were affected by this pandemic. So, the world must prepare better," said Sri Mulyani.

At the G20 Summit this time it was agreed that there would be a joint finance health task force or work unit between the finance ministers and the health ministers under the G20 whose purpose was to prepare the prevention, preparedness, and response (PPR) of the pandemic.

The task force will be led by the Ministers of Finance of Indonesia and Italy.

"Indonesia will be the host or the presidency starting in December and Italy is now the presidency. Of course, Indonesia's role is important because Indonesia is a big country and we also have a commitment to our vaccinations," said the Minister of Finance.