JakartaPost-Apr 24, 2025
The government is holding onto its target for 5 percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth this year despite a recent downward revision from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in light of escalating global trade tensions. Speaking at an online quarterly press briefing of the Financial System Stability Committee (KSSK) on Thursday, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said “after taking into consideration several factors”, Indonesia’s GDP growth would be “around 5 percent” this year. The factors she mentioned included so-called “reciprocal” tariffs introduced by the United States earlier this month, which are expected cause serious disruption to global trade and drive down the volumes of goods shipped across borders. The minister said Indonesia could mitigate the impact of US import tariffs on the domestic economy by exporting more to countries in the region, namely the ASEAN Plus Three countries, which include the ASEAN member states along with China, Japan and South Korea. She also mentioned Europe as a market with potential for increased exports, as well as the BRICS group of emerging economies, which Indonesia joined earlier this year to become the tenth member. The IMF revised down its projection for Indonesia’s growth this year to 4.7 percent in the latest edition of its World Economic Outlook (WEO) report, published on Tuesday. In its previous WEO report, the multilateral institution had a 2025 GDP growth forecast of 5.1 percent for the archipelago. Sri Mulyani pointed out that the 0.4 percentage point downward revision for Indonesia in the IMF’s publication was less than the revision in the outlook for peer countries like the Philippines, which was reduced by 0.6 percentage points, or Thailand, Vietnam and Mexico with downward changes of 1.1, 0.9 and 1.7 percentage points, respectively. Read more at:
