JAKARTA, Oct 13 ― The Indonesian economy began to recover in the third quarter despite the Covid-19 pandemic after the government allocated budget for health, social assistance and small and medium enterprises, reported Xinhua news agency.
The Indonesian economy was expected to recover in the third quarter and grow stronger in this quarter, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said yesterday in a virtual financial profession event.
According to Indrawati, the Indonesian economic growth in the third quarter was still projected to be in the negative range, but it was expected to improve after it contracted 5.32 per cent in the second quarter this year.
At a press conference on the state budget on September 22, the minister predicted the country's economic growth in the third quarter would contract about 2.8 per cent to 1 per cent. As a whole this year, the Indonesian economy contracted between 0.6 per cent and 1.7 per cent.
The projection is in line with those made by the International Monetary Fund, which predicted that the Indonesian economy would grow minus 0.3 per cent in 2020.
The World Bank projected that the Indonesian economic growth would contract between 2 per cent and 1.6 per cent and the Asian Development Bank said the economic growth in the country would contract by 1 per cent this year.
The Indonesian government has set a budget of 695.2 trillion rupiahs (some RM195.7 billion) for Covid-19 mitigation and national economic recovery, making the 2020 budget deficit widen to 6.34 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP). ― Bernama
