The Indonesian government and the House of Representatives (DPR) have agreed on the projection for economic growth of 5.2 percent in 2017.

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati reveals several reasons for the government’s confidence in achieving the target of 5.2 percent economic growth. Firstly, the government made a drastic change by slashing the budget to reduce state agency spending in order to keep 2016 state budget under control.

Another positive factor to boost economic growth is consumption level which remains above 5 percent. “As long as investment grows, last year it grew by 4 percent, if consumption is projected to grow above 5 percent this year, it will show positive moment,” the minister said.

Sri Mulyani added that export figure improved heavily in the first half this year. Considering the drop in export and import last year and they increased around 7-8 percent this year, the Finance Minister is confident that the target of 5.2 percent economic growth can be achieved.

source: TEMPO.CO