Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Vice Minister for Finance Anny Ratnawati has identified three main factors that can protect Indonesia`s economic growth in the face of the European crisis: protecting public consumption, boosting investment, and accelerating government expenditure.

"If we can stabilize all of them at the same time, we can ensure economic growth," Ratnawati said here on Thursday.

She stated if there were projections that the economic growth in Asia Pacific would decrease, Indonesia would need to examine such projections thoroughly because that might reveal the crisis was far from over.

Therefore, consumption, investment and expenditure must be maintained at a good level in order to avoid a slowdown in the domestic economy.

"We need to maintain inflation, as it is linked with rice price stabilization. We need to make sure that our investment is in the right sector and not just on paper. Other than that, government expenditure needs to be at a good level in the second quarter," Ratnawati said.

She explained the three identified factors would need to run in sync, because they were the main foundations of the Indonesian economy which had stabilized in the past few years.

"All three of them will need to run side by side, together, otherwise the foundation will not be strong," Ratnawati added.

The three growth-boosting factors are all the more important because Indonesia`s income from exports in the coming few years is expected to drop due to the economic crisis in the destination countries.

"Europe has a huge impact on us, especially on the export side, which is why sources of economic growth, such as investment, government expenditure and public consumption will need to work at an even higher level," she said.

Ratnawati expressed hope that by the end of the second quarter of 2012, the government`s capital expenditure absorption (utilization) would reach 20% or at least be higher than the same period last year.

"Last year, the range was 6-7% and now it is nearly 14 percent. The increase is twice compared with the same period of the previous year. Hopefully we can reach 20% in the last month of the second quarter," she said.
(KR-BSR)

Editor: Aditia Maruli Radja
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