Bali and the Nusa Tenggara islands are the hardest hit regions in Indonesia amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the country’s statistics agency said, as Indonesia officially fell into its first recession since the Asian financial crisis more than 20 years ago.
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The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) announced yesterday that Indonesia’s GDP contracted by 3.49 percent in Q3 2020, following the 5.32 percent contraction in Q2 2020. A country is in recession when it records negative GDP growth in two successive quarters.
Based on island groupings, BPS said Bali and Nusa Tenggara provinces suffered the deepest contraction.
“The province group of Bali and Nusa Tenggara islands experienced the deepest growth contraction of 6.8 percent,” BPS chief Suhariyanto said during a virtual press conference.
Bali’s economy shrank 12.28 percent on an annual basis in the third quarter, after it contracted by 10.98 percent in the second quarter.
However, when compared solely to the previous quarter, BPS said Bali’s regional GDP expanded 1.66 percent, indicating that “Bali’s economy is slowly recovering amid the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
