n his final year, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is targeting conservative economic growth in 2019 amid ongoing external challenges that have resulted in depreciation of the rupiah.
In his speech to reveal the financial note of the 2019 state budget bill, Jokowi said the government had targeted 5.3 percent growth of GDP in 2019.
The target was a far cry from Jokowi’s ambitious 7 percent growth target during his campaign in 2014. It was also lower than the 5.4 percent target outlined in the 2018 budget.
Jokowi also noted ongoing external challenges that were expected to continue until next year, due to the normalization of monetary policies in the United States and Europe as well as the developments in China.
“The government understands that in 2019 there are many factors that will pose as challenges to maintain the stability and movement of the rupiah’s exchange rate,” Jokowi told lawmakers in Jakarta on Thursday.
In the financial note, the government also projects that the rupiah exchange rate will be at Rp 14,400 per US dollar, higher than Rp 13,400 of this year projection. Meanwhile, the inflation rate was between 2.5 and 4.5 percent.
Meanwhile, Indonesian Crude Price (ICP) is projected at US$70 per barrel next year, and oil lifting and gas lifting were at 750,000 barrel per day (bpd) and 1.25 million barrel oil equivalent per day (boepd), respectively. (bbn)
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