VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Indonesian Minister of Finance, Sri Mulyani Indrawati confirmed that Indonesia continues to maintain good economic growth momentum by maintaining performance stability from the State Budget -APBN. Minister Sri Mulyani said this in Jakarta on Wednesday (7/2), responding to the International Monetary Fund -IMF's recent assessment to the Indonesian economy. She also said that one of the efforts to maintain the stability of the State Budget performance is to maintain the budget deficit in a controlled level and approved by the law, which is three percent for the gross domestic product -DP. According to Sri Mulyani, the consolidation of the state budget becomes a cornerstone when an economic outbreak comes from outside.

Previously, The International Monetary Fund –IMF launched the assessment results which was contained in the Consultation Report article 4 to Indonesia in 2017. The report has been discussed in the IMF Executive Council meeting in Washington DC on January 10, 2018. The IMF assessed that Indonesia is currently in a good position to overcome various social-economic challenges. The position is supported with the recovery of performance in the investment and export sectors, which growing positively since 2017. IMF estimated, with the fiscal reform scenario, the Indonesian potential growth can reach 6.5 percent on the middle term in 2022. All IMF Executive Directors in the meeting appreciated Indonesian economy and welcome the country’s short-term policy of authority which is intended to support the economic growth and keep its stability. The Board of Directors also viewed positively the efforts of the authorities that focus on public spending to priority sectors and welcomed the progress of infrastructure investment in Indonesia. The Executive Director of the IMF also emphasizes that good structural fiscal reform stages should be a priority.

Meanwhile, the Governor of Bank Indonesia (BI), Agus Martowardojo said the IMF views are in line with the assessment of BI which believes that the resilience of the Indonesian economy is getting better. Inflation during 2017 was at a low level of 3.61 percent (year on year). So, over the last three years, inflation has been successfully controlled within the target range. According to him, the economic growth in 2017 reached 5.07 percent supported by the improvement of infrastructure investment by the government and the role of private investment. In addition, the improvement was marked by a healthy current account balance and high inflows of foreign capital, as well as a stable Rupiah exchange rate. With these developments, Indonesia's foreign exchange reserves at the end of 2017 reached the highest record in the history of $130.2 billion dollars. In line with that, the stability of financial system during 2017 is still maintained.