Jokowi conveyed this when leading a Limited Meeting on the Government Work Plan (RKP), Financial Note, and 2025 Draft State Budget at the Presidential Office, Jakarta, Monday (5/8).
“This morning we will discuss the 2025 Draft State Budget. And I want the 2025 Draft State Budget to accommodate all of the president-elect's programs,” said Jokowi.
Even so, Jokowi still reminded that in the preparation of the 2025 RAPBN, it must be aware of the risk of a global economic slowdown. In addition, he also advised to optimize strategic steps to increase the target of state revenue.
“Here I want to emphasize the ease of investment, the ease of export-related products. Then, it would be good if in the 2025 RAPBN we focus. Not everything is done,” he said.
Finance Minister Sri Mulyani after the limited meeting stated that her party could not convey the substance of the 2025 RAPBN, because this would be conveyed in the Financial Note speech by President Jokowi on August 16.
Even so, Finance Minister Sri said that the discussion and drafting process between the current government and the Prabowo-Gibran transition team and the DPR went quite well. According to Sri, in drafting the 2025 RAPBN, the macroeconomic environment, both from a global and national perspective, was taken into account.
“To that end, today we have received approval from the president and the president-elect regarding the macro situation that we read affects the 2025 State Budget, such as economic growth, inflation, interest rates on 10-year SBN, rupiah exchange rate, oil prices, oil and gas lifting, that has been discussed with the DPR. We reported and earlier received several directives that will be finally delivered by the President on August 16,” said Finance Minister Sri.
On this occasion, Finance Minister Sri explained that the preparation of the 2025 State Budget posture was in accordance with President Jokowi's direction, that the state budget next year must be able to accommodate the flagship programs of President-elect Prabowo Subianto.
“The posture is not expected to experience much deviation from what has been discussed with the DPR, but because this is to accommodate in accordance with the current direction of the president, that the 2025 State Budget accommodates priority programs that have been submitted by the elected president's government. So we started to calculate for programs that are often mentioned such as free nutritious food, then several new initiative programs that are currently being finalized with the team from the elected president. This has been included in the 2025 State Budget posture,” he explained.
Regarding further explanation of Prabowo-Gibran's flagship program, namely free nutritious meals, the former World Bank managing director said that the details would be conveyed by the president-elect and his transition team.
“So far, what we have received direction from the current president and the president-elect is a total budget of Rp71 trillion. Regarding the details, the president-elect will continue to prepare with his team for the implementation,” he added.
Bank Permata economist Josua Pardede revealed based on a statement from Finance Minister Sri Mulyani, next year's APBN deficit will remain below three percent. That way, the state budget next year in the hands of the new government, its fiscal tends not to be too tight.
“We can say whether it is strict or not, it has been included. So actually there is no more issue, free lunch can run. But if there are other aspirations from the new government, for example nomenclature, there are K/L (state ministries or institutions) that add, this either way there is an additional budget that must be set at three percent of the budget against GDP, or must take another budget, there are some that must be cut. But the hope is not to cut the education and health budgets,” said Josua.
Josua is confident that at least in 2025 there will be no issue regarding fiscal tightening. However, he said, the new government must remain aware of the issue of the global economic slowdown and the normalization of commodity prices in order to continue to maximize state revenues which have tended to continue to decline in recent times.
Regarding Prabowo-Gibran's flagship program, namely free nutritious meals, Josua emphasized to Prabowo to make more thorough preparations before this program runs, starting from the supply chain to the source of food stock. According to him, this will cause problems if there is a requirement for a fairly high Domestic Component Level (TKDN).
In addition, Joshua hopes that this program will be right on target and will not only be implemented on the island of Java.
“But this is subject to, how is the implementation? Will it be realized in the first semester, is it possible to delay it? Of course, the impact will only be felt next year. So that means the spirit is good, it's just a matter of implementation and also whether this is right on target because if later the implementation of free nutritious meals ends up in Java only, it's actually not significant. But if it is aimed at areas with high stunting, high poverty, there is likely to be an impact,” he concluded. (gi/ab)
