Speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly Bambang Soesatyo. (Source: ANTARA/Muhammad Zulfikar)
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with the Russia-Ukraine war could cause Indonesia’s economy to decline to 4.6 percent this year, said Speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Bambang Soesatyo.
Soesatyo said that the conflict disrupted the commodity market, trade, and global finance market, while several prices of household and energy commodities skyrocketed uncontrollably, thereby causing wild inflation, Antara news agency reported.
The official informed that on April 5, the World Bank projected economic growth for countries in East and Pacific Asia, including Indonesia, as an early warning. Most of them were forecast to experience slow economic growth due to stress factors, including the Russia-Ukraine war.
Indonesia's economic growth was projected to be capped at 5.1 percent in 2022, which is 0.1 percent less than the projection released on October 2021. The worst-case scenario is that the growth could decline to 4.6 percent.
To address the issue, Soesatyo urged the Financial System Stability Committee, comprising the Finance Ministry, Bank of Indonesia, the Financial Services Authority, and the Deposit Insurance Corporation (LPS), to improve coordination to anticipate the situation along with a series of anti-inflation and currency stability measures, among others./.