Ridwan Kamil: It's Time to Move Centralized Economy from Jakarta

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil suggested the central government immediately move the country's economic center from Jakarta to other provinces.

According to Kamil, the county’s economy was shaken since Jakarta is the epicenter of the Covid-19. “This pandemic has taught us: don’t depend on the economy in one region only. This is time to move the centralized economy from Jakarta to other provinces,” he said during a webinar held by the World Bank on Tuesday, June 23.

The distribution of economic activities was truly necessary at this time, the former deputy mayor of Bandung went on. He opined that the country’s dependence on Jakarta as the biggest economic center has actually shocked the economy during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Kamil predicted that the economy of West Java would experience severe contraction until the end of this year.

“This Covid-19 situation is hard for all of us. We predict that the economy will move to the worst level of -2 percent to 2 percent (positive). The government plans to launch a program at the end of June. We’ll see, hopefully, the economy can move a little,” Ridwan Kamil added.

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani, meanwhile, forecasted that if the worst scenario becomes real, the Indonesian economic contraction by -3.1 percent will occur in the second quarter of 2020.

The government actually expected the Indonesian economy to grow positively in Q3 of 2020. However, the Finance Ministry predicted that the nation's economy would be at -1.6 percent that leads to a recession.

Read: Governor Ridwan Kamil Gradually Allows Businesses to Reopen

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