Jakarta (VNA) – The Indonesian Government on October 17 announced a new economic stimulus package that includes cash handouts totaling 30 trillion IDR (1.81 billion USD) for 35 million households and the expansion of a paid internship scheme.
Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto said that the cash handouts will be distributed as early as next week and will last until the end of the year.
The new package comes on top of a nearly 1 billion USD stimulus announced in September, which consisted of food assistance and temporary jobs in construction, and also launched the internship programme.
This will now be extended to a total of 100,000 university graduates, up from 20,000 under the previous plan. The budget for the additional 80,000 interns was allocated at around 1.4 trillion IDR.
On the same day, Indonesia’s Finance Ministry published a regulation stating that the government will cover 6% out of the 11% value-added tax on economy-class domestic air fares for the travel period of December 22 to January 10.
Discounts for air travel for the year-end holidays were included in the stimulus package the government announced last month to encourage spending./.
