VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The government admits that the Indonesian economy is having a recession this year. However, the government itself is optimistic that Indonesia's recession will not be as severe as in other countries.

Head of the Fiscal Policy Agency (BKF) Ministry of Finance Febrio Kacaribu said the recession had occurred since the beginning of the first quarter of 2020.

Indonesia's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is between 5 percent, down to 2.97 percent in the first quarter of 2020.

Then, the decline continued into the second quarter, where the realization was minus 5.32 percent.

"It is clear a recession, but in assessing this recession it is important to make a fair comparison," Febrio said in a virtual media briefing with BKF, Thursday.

He said that the slowdown in economic activity is a sign of a recession. In 2020, Febrio estimates that Indonesia's economy will experience a contraction between minus 1.7 percent to minus 0.6 percent.

"We see that in the first quarter it has gone down. We cannot say a recession because we don't know how long it will take. Now, we see that the second quarter is weakening, the third quarter is weakening. It turns out that in the first quarter, there has been a slowdown and this is sustainable," he explained.

Febrio explained several countries had a record of a recession worse than Indonesia. For example, India recorded at minus 24 percent. So even though Indonesia is having a recession, the way to view it must be from a broad perspective.

If the Indonesian economy is only minus 1.7 percent to minus 0.6 percent. This condition is much better than the economic conditions of other countries.

"This is a very serious problem. But we also do the targeting and remain careful," he concluded. (RRI)