TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said the government spending recorded positive growth in August 2020 compared to that of the previous month.

“In August we have seen its growth by 8.8 percent month to month, so there is an acceleration in government spending after all state spending was regulated in the Presidential Regulation No. 72/2020,” said Sri at a joint meeting with the Finance Commission of the House of Representatives (DPR) on Wednesday, September 2, 2020.

In the second quarter of 2020, government spending recorded a negative growth following the sudden suspension of all activities in the wake of Covid-19. The pandemic forced the government to enforce a large-scale social restriction and a work-from-home policy.

Other than the limitation of activities, Sri said the government refocused, reallocate, and amended the State Budget 2020. “We indeed experience a shock in the second quarter in terms of the state budget and spending,” she added.

Presently, as ordered by President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, the government is monitoring its spending on a weekly basis, hoping it would grow faster and boost economic growth in the latter half of 2020.

Sri Mulyani previously predicted that Indonesia’s economic growth would likely remain negative in the third and fourth quarter of 2020. In the second quarter of 2020, the country’s economic development was at minus 5.3 percent.

Read: Covid-19 Hits Economy, Sri Mulyani: We Must have Imaginations

CAESAR AKBAR