According to Sri Mulyani, this is the reason the president asks for end of year holidays to be reduced

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com – President Joko Widodo asked for rations holiday the end of the year and the substitute for Eid leave in December is reduced.

Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani Indrawati also revealed the reasons for the President’s request Jokowi the.

He said, if the holidays were too long, it could trigger an increase in Covid-19 cases activity an economy that starts to improve can again weaken.

He explained that in normal conditions, holidays usually encourage people’s activities to interact with each other so that consumption occurs. Meanwhile, long holidays during the pandemic can actually increase cases of Covid-19 but do not improve the economy.

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“This means that we must be careful to look at it. Whether with a long holiday, people carry out high mobility activities but do not cause spending and cause additional Covid cases. That must be maintained,” Sri Mulyani explained when giving an explanation during the National Budget press conference KiTa, Monday (23 / 11/2020).

Sri Mulyani explained, in the first month of the fourth quarter, namely October, the number of working days was shorter than last year.

In October this year the number of working days was only 19 days, while last year it was 23 days.

In fact, the long holiday at the weekend in October caused export-import activity at the port to be slightly disrupted due to a holiday. Economic activity has also declined, as can be seen from the decline in electricity consumption in the business sector.

“And it illustrates that the impact on the economy in the production sector is also decreasing, in consumption not pick up too, “he explained.

Meanwhile, the number of working days in November is 21 days both this year and last year. Whereas for December 2020, the number of working days leaves only 16 days if any Year-end holidays which was quite long as previously planned.

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“We do not only see one side but everything. Economic health aspects of business activities and others. This is what the President meant by whether the number of working days or long holidays in an atmosphere of Covid caused an impact unintended that is, the number of cases increases but economic activity does not increase, “he said.

On the other hand, Sri Mulyani assessed that consumption of the middle class is still difficult to encourage. This is because the consumption of the middle class is closely related to their belief in the government’s handling of the pandemic.

“Ideally there are vaccines, so that we can really make the people own them confidence. This is being faced by all countries because they face the same situation where people want to carry out activities but it really depends on whether Covid can be controlled, “he concluded.

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