Ari Kuncoro on Berita Satu TV: Indonesia Needs an Economic Task Force
Hana Fajria ~ FEB UI Public Relations Officer
Jakarta, 1/7/2020 – President Joko Widodo emphasized the importance of maintaining balance in dealing with health and economic issues amid the current Covid-19-triggered crisis to ensure that everything is done simultaneously. Less than 100% of the Covid-19 handling funds were absorbed over a span of three months. This calls for more attention to the management of the economic and health crisis in Indonesia. Economist Prof. Ari Kuncoro who is also Universitas Indonesia rector discussed the importance of maintaining balance in handling economic and health issues.
“Economic forecasts by international institutions such as the World Bank that initially predicted 0% growth have been revised down to -3.4% provided the PSBB last for four months. The OECD predicted that Indonesiaās economy will grow by between -2.9% and 3.9%. This shows that even the OECD does not understand the current condition. Measures to prevent a crisis should include keeping buyers from producers to prevent infections from face-to-face interactions. This contradicts the economic logic that demand and production must meet in the market. This is a complicated issue: if we don’t meet, what are the alternatives? If protecting health means avoiding interaction, then the economy will collapse. Health financing is nonexistent. The first alternative is to use (online) technology so that consumers as well as producers can apply standard precautions against Covid-19, thus keeping transactions alive while reducing transmissions to a minimum,” said Ari Kuncoro in a Zoom event with Sutrisno Iwantono on Berita Satu TV, with the topic “Indonesia Needs an Economic Task Force”, on Wednesday (1/7/2020).
Ari went on to say that from an economic and health perspective, we must sit together to find the right way. We must be creative and patient until a vaccine is found. Like the āopen-and-closeā system, live life in the new normal. Change old habits with new ones, including by washing your hands regularly and maintaining your physical distance.
According to Ari, there is no need for Indonesia to form a new task force because the current task force is sufficient and a national economic program is already part of it. The important thing is that the policies are transmitted to local governments that will later explain them to the public by issuing guidelines. The existing task force should be strengthened with social behavior experts. Thus, there is no need for a special economic task force to prevent coordination problems.
“What the government needs to do is to strengthen the fiscal policy to boost peopleās purchasing power. The Covid-19 task force must be able to create a market for domestic products in a creative way to bring together the production side and the purchasing power side. That calls for an understanding of mass psychology so that people’s purchasing power and the production side are maintained,” said Ari Kuncoro.
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