Finance Minister: Debt Indonesia Continues to Experience Downward Trend

By : Herry Barus And Aldo Bella Putra | Sunday, May 27 2018 - 18:00 IWST

Menkeu Sri Mulyani (Foto Setkab)

INDUSTRY.co.id - Sukoharjo - Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said Indonesia's debt continued to decline year by year.

"In accordance with the regulations set forth in the financial law, every year we should not be debt more than 3 percent of our total economic cake," he said at Public Lecture on Campus IAIN Surakarta, Central Java, Saturday (26/05/2018).

According to him, for the Indonesian economic cake or gross domestic product in Indonesia currently amounted to Rp14,000 trillion. He said if in the previous year Indonesia's debt was at 2.99 percent, last year dropped to 2.55 percent, and this year again fell to 2.19 percent.

"The government is targeting next year, our debt could fall 2 percent from the current figure," he said.

Still under the Finance Law, he said, the maximum limit of total debt should not be greater than 60 percent of GDP in the country. Therefore, if you see the GDP of Indonesia around Rp14.000 trillion, the maximum debt limit can reach Rp8.400 trillion. "And now our debt is about Rp4.000 trillion," he said.

Related to that, he regretted the statement about the state debt that seemed to discredit the government.

"This debt is not as arbitrary as the Minister of Finance, everything is regulated in the law," he said.

During this time, he said, Indonesia's past debt has also been paid but there are new debt applications.

According to him, the new debt is the impact of the deficit in the domestic trade balance.

"The state revenues from taxes and grants amounted to Rp1,890 trillion, while for state expenditures of around Rp2,200 trillion, in principle we have a deficit of around Rp325 trillion," he told media crew.

He said the high demand for state expenditure can not be separated from the many subsidies from the government that are still felt by the community. On the other hand, the government also continues to fix the infrastructure for the ease of community life including for the development of industry in the country.