President Prabowo Subianto said in a cabinet meeting on Friday that a “balanced budget is the most ideal”, stressing that he hoped the deficit would not exceed the cap set at 3 percent of gross domestic product.

The cap was put in place in 2003 to enforce disciplined fiscal policy following the experience of the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997–1998.

However, Prabowo said in an interview with Bloomberg the following day that the administration might allow for a short-term increase of the deficit cap should oil prices stay elevated for a prolonged period.

He said the cap was “a good tool to discipline ourselves” and that there was no plan to revise the 2003 law, “unless there’s a very big emergency like COVID”, before adding, “but I hope that we need not change it”.

“We must live within our means”, the President said in the interview. “Do not spend more than you earn.”

The war in the Middle East has pushed up the Brent crude oil price to US$103 per barrel on Friday from around $70 per barrel before the first missile was fired on Feb. 28. The recent oil price has been sustained at a far higher level than the $70 a barrel assumption set in the budget plan.