JAKARTA, March 20 (Reuters) – Indonesia’s finance minister on Friday raised the country’s crisis management protocol level to “standby” from “alert” and warned that if the COVID-19 outbreak persisted, economic growth could fall to between 0%-2.5%.
Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said her baseline scenario was for GDP growth at above 4%, while the scenario of no growth assumed the coronavirus outbreak lasting three to six months, global trade slumping and Indonesia going into lockdown. Indonesia’s GDP grew 5.02% last year.
A total of 62.3 trillion rupiah ($3.85 billion) in government spending will be shifted to finance the country’s COVID-19 response, she told an online briefing, up from 17.17 trillion rupiah previously announced. ($1 = 16,175.0000 rupiah) (Reporting by Maikel Jefriando, Tabita Diela; Writing by Gayatri Suroyo, Fransiska Nangoy; Editing by Ed Davies)
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