JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia is planning to issue an emergency regulation to allow the government to manage a wider fiscal deficit and increase spending on response to COVID-19 which will effectively revise the state finances law, a cabinet minister said on Tuesday.
The state finances law currently caps the government’s budget deficit at a maximum 3% of gross domestic product for a fiscal year.
The new rules will allow the government to exceed that limit for three consecutive fiscal years, but the cap will be reinstated in 2023, Luhut Pandjaitan, a senior minister who oversees investment and natural resources, said in a video statement.
(Reporting by Bernadette Christina Munthe; Writing by Gayatri Suroyo; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
