JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Friday proposed to parliament a 2,747.5 trillion rupiah ($186.08 billion) budget for 2021 and pledged to continue efforts to support the economy amid uncertainties surrounding the coronavirus pandemic.
The budget proposal, which represents only a 0.3% increase compared with this year’s spending plans, assumed growth in Southeast Asia’s largest economy will rebound to 4.5%-5.5% in 2021, following an official prediction of near flat growth this year.
The proposal assumes a budget deficit of 5.5% of GDP, smaller than the 6.34% expected in 2020.
“The 2021 state budget bill is designed to accelerate economic recovery nationwide amid the COVID-19 pandemic,” Widodo said in his annual budget speech to parliament, ahead of the country’s independence celebrations on Aug. 17.
(Reporting by Gayatri Suroyo, Fransiska Nangoy, Tabita Diela and Maikel Jefriando; Editing by Ed Davies)
