JAKARTA. Efforts to rescue SOE prepared by the government related to the National Economic Recovery (PEN) scheme have the potential to generate a number of risks, especially in terms of increasing debt. Meanwhile, SOE debt until the third quarter of 2020 has reached IDR 2,140 trillion.
Indef Deniey A. Purwanto, Center of Macroeconomics and Finance researcher provided a number of risk notes. First, debt burden. The debt pile of state-owned financial and non-financial institutions has the potential to impose a burden on the economy, thus creating a debt trap.
Second, fiscal risk. SOE debt restructuring carries a fiscal risk that is relatively higher in impact than the other risks. In fact, the impact is equivalent to the risk of loss due to a disaster. Third, the opportunity cost. The budget allocation for SOE restructuring, especially the allocation of financing in the PEN scheme, creates opportunity costs so as to create a fiscal space for the allocation of other economic recovery instruments.
Fourth, trade off between opportunity and risk. On one hand, SOE debt restructuring can be seen as an opportunity to promote economic recovery, but on the other hand it contains risks that will become a burden for the economy.
Based on processed data from the Indonesian Public Sector Debt Statistics (SUSPI) of Bank Indonesia, Deniey revealed that SOE debt had increased drastically since 2016 so that in the third quarter of 2020 it had reached IDR 2,140 trillion. "The trend is that in the last 6 or 5 years SOE debt has tended to increase rapidly, be it SOEs that are financial or non-financial institutions," Deniey explained in a public discussion entitled "SOE Performance and Debt Stacks" by Indef, Wednesday (24/3/2021). (AM/LM)