Finance Minister: Sharpen the Specific Expenditure for Indonesia Prosperity

Jakarta, 01/20/2017 MoF - Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati delivered lecture about Indonesia Economic Outlook in 2017 at the 47th Anniversary of Media Indonesia in Metro TV Studio on Thursday (01/19).

She said that it is important to sharpen the specific expenditure in order to increase budget for education, healthcare, and infrastructure. 'Because it is necessary to the people to create prosperous and productive society, thus we modify the energy subsidies and also the improvement of healthcare,' she conveyed.

She explained 'In the state budget management, the deficit cannot be avoided, but the problem is not on the deficit and debt, but how it can be managed productively,' she explained.

Furthermore, the minister admitted that the deficit in Indonesia is increasing, but it is still able to create economic growth and equity. 'From the average deficit over a decade compared to the performance of the economic growth, Indonesia is relatively pretty good,' she said in a speech.

In her presentation, she explained that despite the problems in poverty and inequality, Indonesia will also challenges the global uncertainties in 2017. 'Big countries like the United States and Japan have their own problems and the economic growth is not always as fast as expected. The economic recovery also has implications and impacts to the whole world,' she added. (hr/rsa)