Indonesia’s Economic Growth Third Best

“We’re grateful that in the crisis situation at the time, when many people predicted economic growth only 3 percent and government predicted 4.3 percent, thet reality is 4.5 percent.” said Coordinating Minister for Economic Hatta Rajasa in Jakarta, Wednesday (Feb. 10).
He said Indonesia’s economic growth is the third best after China and India. This achievement can be reached because of measurable government’s consumption, such as budget for economic stimulant, and people consumption ran well.
Because pf low inflation, he said, people’s purchasing power relatively increased. “We colud push to be better not only focus on state budget and people consumption, but by pushing investment and export,” he said.
Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said that 4.5 percent economic growth is a higher number than government’s prediction during the period. “At the fourth quarter of 2009 the lifting was incredible. It’ll be based to look facrors that support economic growth, we’ll keep on seeing it. In externalside, export and import are faster to recover than our prediction,” she said.
Head of Fiscal Agency of Finance Ministry Anggito Abimanyu said that 4.5 percent is a good signal for 2010 economic outlook. “We will maintain at 5.5 percent level in 2010, hopefully more than that,” he said.
Deputy Chairman of Central Statistics Agency Slamet Utomo said that 4.5 percent of growth is much meaningful to reduce unemployment. “Each one percent of economic growth could absorb about 500 thousand employees. With 4.5 percent of growth, it means that 2,5 milion employees can be absorbed,” he calculated.
He said, the highest growth happened in tranportion and communication sector’s, which reached 15.5 percent. The lowest growth is in trade, hotel and restaurant, at 1.1 percent.



EACH ONE PERCENT OF ECONOMIC GROWTH COULD ABSORB ABOUT 500 THOUSAND EMPLOYEES
Slamet explained that Indonesia's Gross Domestic Product(GDP) in 2009 based on current price reach Rp 5.613,4 trillion. As quarterly, GDP in fourth quarter of 2009 compared with third quarter 2009 was decrease 2,4 percent. Compared to the fourth quarter year of 2008, it grew 5.4 percent.
"Since third quarter of 2009 we have turning point than first and second quarter of 2009, and in fourth quarter of 2009 there's an improvement performance," he said.
He said that 4.5 percent economic growth was caused by activity in the country, such as general election to choose legislators ang president, so it gave impact to domestic economy. The other factor was government's policy to give stimulant and subsidy program, such as direct cash assistance, recruitment, and infrastructure development.
Slamet said the biggest constributor for GDP was household consumption. "Our country is different with Singapore, which the role of consumption to GDP is more than 50 percent. Singapore fully depended on export. It means that Indonesia does not really depend on external factor, but rather depend on domestic demand."

Global Improvement
Chief Economist of Danareksa Research Institute Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa said that economic growth increased because of global economic improvement, so that Indonesia's export was higher than the previous year.
“The next effect, production begins to push again. Labors return to work overtime, so their income will increase. At the end, consumption level could climb. It will support national economic growth above the government prediction,” he said.
Economic observer of Bogor Institute of Agriculture Hermanto Siregar said the worry of various parties about global crisis impact to Indonesiadid nit proven. National growth in 2009 was 4.5 percent, above government prediction, prove it. Consumption was not affected by the global economic crisis,” said hermanto to Jurnal Nasional.
According to him, Indonesia's agriculture can absorb 42 percent of employee, above all other sector, so that national consumption was also being stable.”
Hermanto said he is optimistic that Indonesia economic growth will increase to 5.5 percent until 6 percent this year.

Sumber : Jurnal Nasional (Monday, March 1, 2010)