VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

President Joko Widodo says, he is optimistic that 2021 will be a momentum for economic recovery after Covid-19 pandemic struck Indonesia. Therefore, he asked regional governments to prepare scenarios for recovery of the sectors worst affected.

When opening the 2020 National Development Planning Conference   through a video conference on Thursday (30/4), President Joko Widodo asked governors, regents, mayors, and heads of the Regional Development Planning Agency to identify in detail the impact of Covid-19 in their respective regions. He also requested the regional governments to be able to carefully sort out the sectors affected by Covid-19, starting from those most affected, survived, and sectors that can actually take the opportunities that exist. According to the President, there are some sectors that suffer loss, such as Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), tourism, construction, and transportation sectors. Even so, he saw that there are also several sectors that survived and could continue to move, such as the textile, chemical, pharmaceutical, medical devices, food and beverage, communication services, and logistics sectors.

Meanwhile, to prevent mass layoffs, the President said, the government has prepared an economic stimulus package program to survive and prevent layoffs, such as tax incentives, credit restructuring and relaxation of raw material imports.

However, he cautioned that micro-businesses and ultra-micro businesses must also be helped. According to him, economic stimulus must reach the informal sectors, such as street vendors, snack sellers, and small shops. He also revealed that the number of business operators is very large. According to data of the National Development Planning Agency, the figure reaches 40 million with a large workforce. He added that that amid COVID-19 pandemic situation, the government has reallocated and refocused the budget into three priorities, namely health, social safety net and stimulus priorities for economic recovery.

President Joko Widodo perceived that indeed, there is no certainty that the COVID-19 pandemic will come to end in the world. However, the government continues to prepare various policy scenarios to anticipate from the mild to the most severe impacts of COVID-19 during the Covid-19 pandemic situation.