Government Handles Pandemic and Defends National Economy, Beware of Ahistorical Criticism Without Context
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has had great success in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and also continues to defend the national economy, being wary of ahistorical criticism without a clear context.
Under the leadership of President Jokowi, Indonesia has once again succeeded in getting into the ranks of the upper middle income group.
What is extraordinary is that this achievement was successfully recorded by the country despite various pressures and uncertainties in the global economy, such as the results released by the World Bank as of July 1, 2023.
Data shows that the Gross National Income (GNI) per capita from Indonesia can increase by 9.8 percent to 4,580 US Dollars in 2022.
This figure has increased compared to last 2021 which only reached US$4,170.
In the latest report released by the World Bank, Indonesia’s position is almost the same as that of El Salvador.
The Head of the Fiscal Policy Agency, Ministry of Finance, Febrio Kacaribu explained that Indonesia had managed to rise in rank, even though there was an increase in world inflation.
“Indonesia has managed to rise to become an upper-middle income country, even when the classification threshold has risen following the increase in global inflation,” explained the Head of the Fiscal Policy Agency, Ministry, he said.
Of course, Indonesia’s success in returning to becoming an upper-middle-income country is due to the nation’s strong economic recovery under President Jokowi’s leadership.
Furthermore, according to Febrio, the achievements recorded by Indonesia cannot be separated from the effectiveness of the handling of the pandemic, the implementation of the COVID-19 Handling Program and the National Economic Recovery (PC-PEN).
Not only that, but the economic transformation through the downstreaming of natural resources (SDA) promoted by President Jokowi has also been a great success.
The existence of various APBN instruments from the PC-PEN program for 2020 to 2022 has a very important role in providing policy bearings during the pandemic crisis so as to help accelerate national economic recovery.
Then, how can the significant impact of the natural resource downstream policy be able to boost the country’s external balance so that the nation’s recovery can be very fast.
The government itself has a strong commitment to maintaining economic recovery, which is evidenced by the reduction in the poverty rate and reduced unemployment rate.
“The government is committed to continuing to maintain the quality of economic recovery. This is shown by the reduction in the poverty rate back to single digits in 2021 and the consistent decline in the unemployment rate which continues to approach pre-pandemic levels,” continued Febrio.
Of course, with all this data, the community itself should be able to remain vigilant if it turns out that there are still a handful of parties who criticize but are ahistorical and without context.
Special Staff to the Minister of Finance, Yustinus Prastowo revealed that the criticism that had been raised by Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono (AHY) regarding the Government’s debt was very inconsistent with the country’s current conditions.
“Unfortunately the criticism from AHY is ahistorical, trapped in numbers, not dynamic factual conditions,” he responded.
