Antara, Jakarta – Statistics Indonesia (BPS) announced that the country's poverty rate was at 9.36 percent as of March 2023, down from September 2022's 9.57 percent. According to the Finance Ministry's Fiscal Policy Agency (BKF) chief Febrio Kacaribu, the decline is in line with the government's policy focus.

"In line with the government's short-term policy to focus on accelerating the reduction of extreme poverty to 0 percent by 2024," Febrio said in an official statement in Jakarta, Tuesday, July 18.

This March's poverty rate of 9.36 percent is also lower compared to pre-pandemic levels. In March 2019, Indonesia's poverty rate was 9.41 percent. Indonesia's lowest poverty rate before the pandemic was achieved in September 2019, when it stood at 9.22 percent.

Meanwhile, the number of Indonesian poor per March 2023 was 25.90 million people, down by 0.46 million from September 2022. Between March 2021 and March 2023, 1.6 million people managed to get out of poverty.

Spatially, the poverty rate as of March 2023 declined both in urban and rural areas. "The poverty rate decline in March 2023 is in line with the ongoing strengthening of economic activities, the decline in unemployment, and the increasingly controlled inflation," Febrio said.

Source: https://en.tempo.co/read/1749673/poverty-down-to-9-36-in-line-with-the-govts-focus-bkf-say