World Bank projects Indonesia’s economy to recover at moderate pace of 3.7pc this year

• Dec 17, 2021

JAKARTA, Dec 17 — The World Bank projected Indonesia’s economy to recover at a moderate pace of 3.7 per cent in 2021 due to the Covid-19 Delta variant wave mid-year.

In a statement today, it said the growth would speed up to 5.2 per cent in 2022 if the country avoided another severe Covid-19 spike, achieved 70 per cent vaccine coverage and maintained accommodative monetary and fiscal policies.

Director for Indonesia and Timor-Leste Satu Kahkonen said the figures are based on the assumption that global trade growth and commodity prices would moderate.

She said beyond a strong public health response, the largest economy in Southeast Asia needed to sustain recent structural reform efforts to build a more competitive, resilient and greener economy.

“This should accelerate growth even as the authorities start to gradually reduce macroeconomic support,” she said.

In its Economic Outlook 2022 report, the World Bank said downside risks to the outlook remained high amid uncertainty about the pandemic and global financial conditions.

Indonesia became the epicentre of Asia’s Covid-19 pandemic with 54,000 infection cases recorded in mid-July this year but the pandemic now continued to show an easing trend.

Yesterday, 213 new Covid-19 cases were recorded, raising the total tally of infections to 4,259,857.

The country has so far detected only one case of the Covid-19 Omicron variant. — Bernama