ACI conducted the Webinar for Jambi province on Tuesday, September 15 2020, under the Subnational Competitiveness Webinar Series. The webinar was titled “The Inaugural Provincial Dialogue on the Economy and Development 2020 for Jambi”. Amongst those in attendance included senior officeholders from various government agencies from Jambi province, members of Indonesian Employers’ Association (APINDO) of Jambi and academics from University of Jambi.
Watch the video to view highlights from the Jambi Provincial Dialogue and download the full webinar report below.
Stakeholders’ Inputs
Business Sector
To provide a context of how COVID-19 has impacted Jambi’s economy, Mr John Kennedy, head of DPP APINDO Jambi, presented the rubber industry as an example. Mr John mentioned that the ongoing pandemic has caused rubber demand to plunge. As rubber purchasers either halt or cancel their purchases, Jambi’s export-oriented rubber firms have faced issued with excess inventory. Due to the low demand, Mr John iterates that the price of rubber is likely to fall in the near future, further dampening business outlook in this sector.
Government Sector
Dr. Donny Iskandar, the head of the Regional Development Planning Agency of Jambi, noted that travel industry took the biggest hit with 95% revenue drop in Q2. Other heavily impacted sectors are transportation, accommodation, and service. Dr Donny presented three government approaches to restore Jambi’s economic growth: educating the public on COVID-19, introducing economic incentives to encourage MSMEs’ investment, and utilizing fiscal and monetary policies to stimulate the agricultural economy.
Academic Sector
Prof. Dr. Syamsurijal from the University of Jambi signaled that the COVID-19 case count is not a determinant of the economic impact of COVID-19 on the province. Even with relatively low COVID-19 numbers in the province, Jambi’s forward and backward linkages with the rest of Indonesia mean that it has also felt the nationwide COVID-19 economic impact. To illustrate the extent of this impact, Prof. Dr. Syamsurijal presented Jambi’s GDRP growth in the second quarter of 2020, which has negative growth of -1.72%.
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