JAKARTA. Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati predicts that Indonesia's economy will contract again in the third quarter (Q3) of 2020, making a recession inevitable.
Technically, a recession occurs if the economy contracts in two consecutive quarters with negative growth on a year-on-year basis. In Q2, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) recorded that Indonesia's economy contracted by 5.32%.
According to Ms Indrawati, Indonesia's economic growth will remain negative in Q3. "Even in the fourth quarter the economy will be below the neutral zone," she said at a meeting with the House of Representatives' Budget Committee, Wednesday (2/9).
Until the end of 2020, she added, economic growth will be in the range of -1.1% to 0.2%.
For next year, Ms Indrawati predicts that economic growth will be in the range of 4.5% to 5.5, although it still depends on the government's handling of the coronavirus (COVID-19) handling in the second semester of 2020. (AM/MS)