VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The Finance Ministry stated that the focus of the state budget was still to protect the public from a potential pandemic event and encourage economic recovery.

State expenditure was also streamlined, so that the state budget deficit could be below three percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023, Deputy Minister of Finance Suahasil Nazara stated.

"We expect that with spending efficiency, we can conduct fiscal consolidation. However, this must still protect the economy through health spending and continue to encourage economic recovery," Nazara stated at the State Finance Symposium accessed here on Wednesday.

He said as for the economy that started to see some recovery post COVID-19, state revenues had also begun to improve, as was apparent from the realization of state revenues in September 2022 that grew 45.7 percent as compared to the same period in the previous year.

He believed that this increase in revenue would be able to pursue the goal of having a state budget deficit of below three percent.

Concurrently, government spending continued to grow in a healthy manner, reaching 5.9 percent annually in September 2022, which is used to ensure that public health and economic recovery are maintained.

He noted that the government would also maintain economic growth through improvement of coordination between fiscal and monetary policy makers that was embodied in the Financial System Stability Committee.

Coordination is also required in the midst of global economic conditions, in which recession would haunt the world in 2023.

"We reduce prices by reducing liquidity by increasing the benchmark interest rate that must be matched with fiscal policy and the state budget that we normalize towards a deficit below three percent," Nazara concluded. (antaranews)