Indonesia to spend less than expected of Covid-19 budget by end-2020

• The government expects to spend around 95% of the total COVID-19 stimulus budget by end-2020, less than the initial target, as it struggles to ramp up state spending to support an economy still badly hit by the coronavirus outbreak.
• The government is planning to spend only IDR664tr, 95.5% of the COVID-19 stimulus budget totalling IDR695.2tr, by the end of 2020, according to Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati.
• The government had spent 62.1% of the total budget as of end-Nov 20, with the remainder to be spent in Dec 20.
• According to the Finance Ministry, the government had only spent 41.4%, or IDR40.32tr, of the IDR97.26tr healthcare budget for the pandemic response as of 30 Nov 20.
• “If the healthcare budget is not fully disbursed, then it will be used to finance vaccine procurement,” Sri Mulyani said.
• There is no set date as to when Indonesia will conduct mass vaccinations. State-owned pharmaceutical company PT Bio Farma is currently waiting for results from the phase three clinical trials of a COVID-19 candidate vaccine produced by Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac Biotech for the vaccine to be authorized for public use.

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