VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati emphasized that the government must maintain a balance between health and economy amid a pandemic because both have implications for the welfare of the community.

"This is something we have to maintain a balance between health and maintaining the economy and restoring people's welfare," she said at the Joint Meeting with the Indonesian Parliament in Jakarta, Monday.

Sri Mulyani stated that balancing the economic and health aspects is a very difficult task but it can be achieved if all elements of the nation have a concern to work together.

“The COVID-19 is not a financial problem, but it is a health problem," she said.

She said the balance had to be done because the government's efforts to restore the economy related to the welfare of the community would very much depend on handling the COVID-19 pandemic.

The minister explained that there are several factors that affect economic recovery, such as the potential for a second wave, availability of vaccines, and vaccination activities so that handling in the health sector must also be the main thing.

Meanwhile, the economic sector had seen a reversal trend in the third quarter after there was deep pressure in the previous quarters.

She predicts that the third quarter will still be in the negative zone, but it will be better than the growth in the second quarter which contracted by 5.32 percent.

"Growth in the first quarter was at 3 percent, the second quarter was minus 5.3 percent, and in the third quarter we predict that it might still negative, although it is much better than in the second quarter," she said.

Sri Mulyani explained that recovery in both the economic and health sectors requires a very large fiscal stimulus, causing this year's state budget deficit to be estimated at 6.34 percent.

This fiscal stimulus was also carried out by various countries including UK, Spain, France, and Germany, which reached 10 percent of GDP, causing economic contraction to reach double digits.

"In this context, we say that the entire world who experienced a tremendous shock then they use fiscal as a countercyclical and that causes a quite large deficit," she said. (Antaranews)