JAKARTA: Indonesia’s government said it has significantly improved the distribution of social assistance to the poor to cushion the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Surveys by the World Bank showed there has been major improvement in distribution of aid and this would help Southeast Asia’s largest economy perform better from the third quarter onwards.
A survey in August showed 90% of intended recipients had received at least one type of the government’s social assistance programmes, up from 40% in May, Febrio told a virtual news conference.
Febrio Kacaribu, the head of the finance ministry’s fiscal policy office also highlighted improvements in the job market.
“We saw that more than 75% of workers who had ceased to work in May have now returned to work. Seventy percent among them returned to the same jobs,” he said.
“This gives us hope that the third quarter will be better than the second quarter and the fourth quarter will be much better than the second quarter.”
Indonesia is facing its first recession since the Asian financial crisis due to the fallout from the pandemic and anti-virus measures that have curbed activity.
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