The Minister of National Development Planning (PPN)/Head of the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) Suharso Monoarfa emphasized that 2022 is an important year for economic recovery. This is because in the 2022 Government Work Plan (RKP), Bappenas has planned the implementation of various large projects aimed at achieving economic growth and other development targets. In the material presented, Bappenas said that with the right intervention, Indonesia's potential economic growth from 2022 to 2045 is estimated at 6.3 percent.
Appropriate policy interventions, and not just business as usual, are considered important to restore Indonesia's economic growth trajectory towards a high-income country in 2045.
"The year 2022 is important for recovery. Our recovery is not optimal because there is still a recovery gap," said Suharso in a discussion with the media at the Ministry of National Development Planning/Bappenas office, Thursday (2/9/2021). This is important, Suharso added, because the Indonesian economy has long been growing below its potential since 2014. Not only that, Indonesia's economic growth has been stagnant at the level of 5 percent before the Covid-19 pandemic, which ultimately weakened the economy so that it contracted -5.32 percent on an annual basis (year-on-year/yoy) in 2020.
In fact, to become a high-income country in 2045, Indonesia's average economic growth needs to exceed 5 percent. Even so, Suharso said that there was optimism related to the economy in 2022 based on a number of projections from various international institutions. For example, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects economic growth of 5.9 percent in 2022; The World Bank or World Bank projects 5.0 percent; The OECD projects 5.1 percent; and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) projecting 5.0 percent. "Looking at the projections by the World Bank, IMF, OECD, and ADB, all of them feel optimistic that there will be a rebound in 2022. This means that this pandemic can be contained, at least the vaccination gap in the world will begin to be resolved," he concluded.
