Jakarta (VNA) – The Indonesian Government isplanning to expand its social aid programme and incentives for micro, small andmedium enterprises (MSMEs) in an effort to boost consumer spending and revivethe economy in the second half of this year.
Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati saidduring a recent online press conference that the government will reallocatearound 70.8 trillion Rp (4.85 billion USD) from existing ineffective stimuluspackages to fund the social aid expansion and new incentives.
She noted the social aid program period will beextended to December to cushion the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Under the plan, the government will allocate 4.6trillion Rp to increase the amount of rice for the 10 million recipients of theFamily Hope Program to 15 kilograms per month. It will also disburse 500,000 Rpto 10 million Staple Food Card recipients this month.
The Indonesian Government is also preparing aidfor workers with salaries lower than 5 million Rp per month and allocating anestimated budget of 31.2 trillion Rp for such aid.
The aid, in the form of direct cash transfers,will be focused on 13.8 million workers registered on the Workers SocialSecurity Agency database who are not civil servants or State-owned enterprises(SOEs) employees, according to SOEs Minister Erick Thohir.
Finance Minister Sri Mulyani also said thegovernment will offer electricity and tax incentives for businesses andindustries as well as productive aid for ultra-micro and micro businesses tosupport the supply side and help businesses to reduce their production costs.
It will also disburse aid to 12 million MSMEswith a total budget of 30 trillion Rp, she said, noting that the aid is meantfor productive use and not in the form of loans.
Indonesia’s gross domestic product (GDP) shrunk5.32 percent year-on-year in the second quarter as all components, except fornet exports, fell annually as a result of the pandemic./.
