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t is now back to business for the millions of private-sector and government workers, street vendors, hawkers, professionals and business executives who just returned from almost 10 days of Idul Fitri celebrations in their hometowns '€” spending or sharing the equivalent of billions of US dollars with their relatives across the world'€™s largest archipelagic country.

Most factories, mines and other businesses as well as government offices stopped operations over the past 10 days to allow their workers to celebrate Idul Fitri during the officially extended holidays. It was the peak of spending sprees this year. It was also a kind of redistribution of income to the rural areas, where most of the desperately poor live.

Most people see the celebration of Idul Fitri and its massive exodus tradition as the combined reflection of cultural, social and economic dimensions, in addition to its religious meaning and spiritual experience.

The 40-day period, starting with the Ramadhan fasting month on June 17, then capped by the celebrations over the past 10 days, made up the peak period of spending sprees in the Muslim-majority nation. Most shopping malls, grocery stores and supermarkets usually book almost 50 percent of their annual sales during this period alone.

Tens of billions of dollars were pumped into the countryside, notably in Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi, during the Ramadhan fasting month and during the exodus, as millions of Indonesian migrant workers overseas joined other Idul Fitri revelers to enjoy the religious feast with their families and relatives in their hometowns.

This development is partly the result of the country'€™s transformation from a largely agriculture, rural-based economy into a modern, urban-based one.

Remittances from Indonesian workers overseas, notably the Middle East, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, to their home villages also reached their peak one or two weeks before Idul Fitri, which officially fell on July 17-18.

This is perhaps the only time of the year when money flowing to the countryside exceeds that to the cities. What usually takes place during most of the year is the reverse whereby the commercial centers in the cities suck money out of the rural areas.

But the spending sprees have done a lot of good for the economy, which has been experiencing one of its lowest rates of growth, as exports have slumped amid the recession in Europe and steep decline in China, the world'€™s second-largest economic locomotive.

The rationale is that consumption is at the same time production and production is simultaneously consumption. Without consumption there is no production because what is produced is useless, but without production there is nothing to consume either.

The spending spree will certainly fuel an economic expansion faster than the 4.7 percent growth in the previous quarter. Hopefully the government speeds up its budget implementation in the second semester so that growth for the whole year can still reach 5 percent.