MPR Leadership Appreciates Purbaya's Performance in Maintaining Fiscal Resilience

Jakarta (ANTARA) - Deputy Speaker of the MPR Eddy Soeparno has appreciated the performance of Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa in maintaining national fiscal resilience amid the global crisis triggered by the armed conflict involving the United States, Israel, and Iran. This was expressed by Eddy in response to Purbaya’s view that Indonesia is not facing an energy emergency because of its strong State Revenue and Expenditure Budget (APBN). “I appreciate the Finance Minister’s performance in maintaining our fiscal resilience so that the energy turbulence resulting from the war in the Middle East has not pushed Indonesia into an energy emergency condition,” said Eddy in his statement in Jakarta on Friday. Nevertheless, Eddy also warned that a strong APBN does not mean Indonesia automatically escapes the energy crisis. “However, we need to remain vigilant that Indonesia’s current strong APBN is not a guarantee that energy supplies, which have so far been met through import routes, will always be fulfilled,” he stated. He assessed that the Iran-Israel-US war is a global disruption on par with the disruption when the world was hit by COVID-19. At that time, a number of products and commodities were difficult to import because producer countries needed them domestically. “This means that even if we have sufficient funds to buy them, producer countries may not be willing to sell the products in question,” said Eddy. According to him, this is the risk currently faced by Indonesia. Although Indonesia has a strong APBN, it may not be able to meet energy needs such as fuel oil, oil and gas, and LPG, which have so far been imported, because they are in high demand and their sales are restricted by oil-producing countries. For this reason, he urged all stakeholders to remain vigilant while striving to ensure that Indonesia’s energy supply sources are reliable. Eddy emphasised that in the current global energy crisis, the main priority is to achieve reliability of supply and not merely availability of supply. In addition, he also reminded of President Prabowo Subianto’s message to build national energy resilience through accelerating the energy transition, which needs to be implemented immediately. “The current war in the Middle East is an alarm that Indonesia’s energy resilience is vulnerable. Therefore, we need to accelerate the energy transition, strengthen electrification, and develop abundant national bioenergy sources. While our APBN is strong, this is the time to build strong energy resilience as well,” said this member of Commission XII of the DPR RI.