Indonesia to offer cash assistance to tourism workers

The Indonesian Government will start offering cash assistance to workers in the tourism industry sometime between late November and early December, Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati has said.

Each beneficiary will receive 600,000 IDR (over 42 USD) in cash which is distributed in three installments, she told a recent virtual press conference after a cabinet meeting.

This social subsidy programme has been devised by the national economic recovery commission under the guide of Coordinating Minister of Economic Affairs Airlangge Hartarto, she said, adding that details of the programme will be announced by Hartarto later.

The Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy is expected to soon issue guidelines on requirements and who are eligible to receive the assistance.

Indrawati said she hopes the programme will benefit workers in tourism – the sector hit the hardest by COVID-19, but refused to disclose the budget for the programme.

At the end of September, Minister Indrawati announced that Indonesia will allocate 9.2 trillion IDR from the State budget for 2022 to support the recovery of tourism post-pandemic.

Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Sandiaga Uno has recently revealed that nearly 2 million tourism workers in Indonesia are at risk of losing jobs.

According to Uno, before the pandemic, tourism was the second largest foreign currency earner after the oil and gas sector. However, in 2020, the revenue from tourism only reached 3.54 billion USD, down nearly 80 percent compared to 2019./.

VNA