It concerns the lives of many people...Jakarta (ANTARA) - The ministers of the Onward Indonesia Cabinet will evaluate the plan for revising the price of subsidized Pertalite fuel for the next one or two days before reporting it to President Joko Widodo (Jokowi).
Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, Airlangga Hartarto, conveyed the information at a press conference at the Presidential Office here on Wednesday.
Currently, the government is preparing a number of schemes regarding the price adjustment so that the consumption of subsidized fuel does not exceed the maximum fuel allocation determined in the 2022 state budget (APBN).
Currently, only 6 million kiloliters out of the 23 million kiloliters of the Pertalite subsidy quota is left. Based on the remaining quota, the government has estimated that the subsidized fuel will run out in October 2022.
As of August 2022, the government has disbursed Rp208.9 trillion in energy subsidies and Rp293.5 trillion in energy compensation.
Earlier, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati had said that there were three options for resolving the issue, namely controlling the consumption of fuel, increasing the energy subsidy budget ceiling to Rp698 trillion, or increasing the price of the fuel.
If the government increases the energy subsidy, the burden on the state revenue and expenditure budget will become higher, considering that the energy subsidy will rise three times from the initial allocation of Rp158 trillion, she noted.
President Widodo has directed ministers to carefully decide and calculate the price adjustment so that it does not suppress people's purchasing power and national economic growth.
"It concerns the lives of many people, thus everything must be decided carefully, the impact should be calculated to not reduce the people's purchasing power and household consumption," he said.
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Translator: Indra Pribadi, Uyu Liman
Editor: Suharto
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