By: Dini Asikin) *
The demonstrations that have taken place in the past few days have resulted in a number of negative excesses. Not only damaging public facilities and disrupting the mobility of citizens, the negative demonstration impact turned out to impact on the national economic sector.
The recent demonstrations in Indonesia have been touted as the masterminds of the decline in the economic system. Even the impact on the weakening rupiah exchange rate is very unfortunate. Though economic growth some time ago has just been reported to have jumped. As we know, thousands of students actively took to the streets again. Student action was held in various regions in Indonesia. Namely, with the same demand, reject a number of RKUHP, KPK Law Revision, until the land bill.
Even with the shopping center entrepreneurs, they claimed that the demonstrations which ended in riot had made the anxiety drag on. They stated that the protests and prolonged unrest that are now happening in Hong Kong will spread to Indonesia. The last two weeks were mentioned indications of a demonstration that encompassed a variety of elements, ranging from students, students to workers also affected commerce.
Stefanus Ridwan, as the General Chair of the Indonesian Shopping Center Association (APPBI) said that his party was still waiting and observing until Wednesday. Particularly related to the riot demonstration that occurred on Monday night (9/30), impacted on a number of shopping centers. Among others, Semanggi Plaza, Plaza Senayan, Senayan City, Slipi Plaza. However, he could not confirm the material loss from the incident. His party had expressed his anxiety if the demonstration would continue.
Ridwan also when attending the Council of Asian Shopping Centers (CASC) or commonly called the shopping center forum in Asia, in KL Malaysia, the Hong Kong representative said economic data that was quite sad. Especially in the retail sales sector in malls which also dropped by 20 percent.
Purchasing Manager, IHS Markit Hong Kong was declared to have fallen by around 40.8 in August. This figure decreased by 3.8 which originally had perched at 43.8. This decline was said to be the sharpest decline, especially in the private sector since February 2009. This is suspected as a result of business activities that have been exacerbated by paralysis due to many protests.
Hong Kong is now claimed to be on the verge of its first recession for a decade. The main factor is that the economy experienced a contraction of up to 0.4% in April to June. Protests ensued and continued to increase automatically affecting tourists and hitting retail sales in one of the most popular shopping destinations in the world. Demonstrations that convey aspirations in the DPR-RI should not be anarchic. Because this will have a very bad effect, especially if it takes place in the long run.
Ridwan also said that the potential for ongoing demonstrations led him to have coordinated with the authorities to increase security. Mall managers have also increased security in the internal sector in each shopping center.
Minister of Finance, Sri Mulyani Indrawati also agreed if the demonstration had a real impact on the Indonesian economy. Because, in a period of global economic slowdown, disruption of the political situation will actually disrupt the investment climate. Even so, he still hopes that such actions will not harm the stability of the country’s economy. He stated that his party was trying to restrain the effects of the slowing pace of the global economy on the domestic economy. In fact, it has been declared under control when the European Central Banks and the United States cut interest rates and quantitative easing (quantitative easing).
On the other hand, foreign investors still believe in the condition of geopolitical stability in Indonesia. This was proven in the period of April to August 2019, the flow of foreign capital entering Indonesia was still moving quite positively. Therefore, he hopes for all parties to be able to maintain the momentum of economic and political stability in Indonesia. This is important to be done to reduce the effects that may come from the external sector.
According to the data above it is undeniable, as far as the demonstration goes, there are many reports related to the economic slowdown in the country. The smallest economic impact is the weakening of the people’s economy. Surely the people around the demonstration had to think again in order to open their booths in the middle of an anarchic demonstration. As a result, stretching the household economy also declined. Not to mention the displaced parties, surely they will feel even worse economic impact, because they are not able to work to make coffers of money as a support of life. Hopefully this situation will quickly improve so as not to further make the country’s economy plummet and impact the wider community.
) * The author is a social economic observer
