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COVID-19 surge will hamper Q2 GDP growth: Sri Mulyani
The Finance Ministry expects the recent COVID-19 surge to negatively affect second-quarter economic growth.
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Finance Minister Sri Mulyani (left) and State-Owned Enterprises Minister Erick Thohir deliver a press statement at the Presidential Office in Jakarta on June 24, 2020. (Antara/Sigid Kurniawan/POOL)
T
he Finance Ministry has acknowledged that Indonesia’s recent COVID-19 surge will hamper gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the second quarter, a period that was otherwise expected to book record-high growth.
Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati told reporters on Monday that the ministry was particularly concerned over the surge on Java, an island that contributes nearly 60 percent of the country’s GDP but that was also the epicenter of a new outbreak.
“That surge will be the center of our attention and will affect second quarter growth,” she said during an online press conference.
Top officials had projected Indonesia to book above 6 percent GDP growth in the second quarter this year, a figure unseen since 2013, according to Statistics Indonesia (BPS), as the country recovers from an economic contraction in the same period last year.
Read also: Economic chiefs forecast GDP growth of more than 6% in Q2
The Finance Minister herself projected the country’s GDP to grow between 7.1 and 8.3 percent in the second quarter.
However, experts warned that a resurgence in COVID-19, particularly due to the new variant, presented a key risk to Indonesia’s economic growth prospects this year.
