Introductory Remarks of President Joko Widodo before a Plenary Cabinet Meeting on the Governments Programs and Activities in 2016, at the State Palace, Jakarta, on 4 January 2016
Unofficial English Translation
Bismillahirahmanirahim,
Assalamulaikum warahmatullaahi wabarakatuh,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Today, we have our first Plenary Cabinet Meeting in 2016. Let me extend to you a Happy New Year 2016.
Today I would also like to convey a number of matters that ministers and heads of non-governmental institutions have to pay attention to. But before that, let me give you a realization report given to me by the Coordinating Minister for the Economy.
Alhamdulillah, this year (2015)s inflation is more or less 3.3 percent. The Statistics Central Agency (BPS) will report the result today. In the meantime, our economic growth was around 4.7 4.8 percent and if compared with economic growth of other countries, ours is positive enough. Economic growth of some other countries dropped by around 1.5 percent, 2 percent and 3 percent compared to the growth of the previous years.
Meanwhile, regarding the (budget) realization and absorption, we can clearly see that our budget realization is not like what some observers said that the budget realization will drop below 80 percent. I suppose it is far from that. In fact, the realization of state expenditure was at 91.2 percent or at 1,810 trillion and alhamdulillah, I think it is very positive.
Regarding state revenue, 84.7 percent or Rp. 1,491 trillion was obtained from tax revenues, including 83% was from tax and 93.8 percent was from non-tax. This is a positive figure because seeing these figures, it means our deficit is at 2.8 percent and we currently still have the amount of unused funds (silpa) of Rp. 10.8 trillion.
With the inflation last year being at 3.3 percent, in 2016, let me remind Minister of Trade, Minister of Agriculture and Head of the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) of matters related to (monitoring) prices (of commodities) in our markets. We have to continue monitoring the prices so inflation this year will be at the same rate as that in 2015. We have to immediately supply commodities when the stock is low. If there is price distortion in the market, we have to immediately address them. (Humas) (EP/YM/Naster)