During the holy month of Ramadan, Muslim clerics in a remote town on Indonesia's West Java gathered for an unusual sermon led by central bank officials on the importance of managing inflation. - REUTERS
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00It's common to see people gather around to listen to Islamic clerics during the holy
00:06month of Ramadan in Indonesia. But this isn't a sermon. It's a forum to talk about inflation.
00:14Ramadan see surges in demand for food as people prepare feasts for after the sun sets. There's
00:20also a spike in demand for clothes for the Eid al-Fitr festival at the end of the month.
00:26People that rush to buy can spark price hikes, and businesses sometimes hike prices in anticipation
00:33too. The remote town of Majalengka is no different. Central bank officials were leading this sermon,
00:40part of Bank Indonesia's strategy, to have clerics preach against Ramadan overconsumption.
00:45The hope is that clerics, influential in far-flung towns like this, can help effectively spread
00:51the message. Cajang Hermawan is the head of Bank Indonesia in the region.
00:59According to our guidance in Islam, overconsumption is forbidden, whether in buying clothes or
01:04food. And with this forum, we will provide literacy and education on giving a better
01:08understanding of spending money wisely to help stabilize prices.
01:14The central bank has tried a number of unconventional programs. They've hosted podcasts on spending,
01:19brought in religious leaders to get through farmers, and helped build this greenhouse
01:24for students to grow Chinese cabbage and water spinach. The bank wants to foster entrepreneurship
01:30and possibly improve the local food supply. Asep Zaki Mulyadno is the head of the school.
01:38Maybe we have not felt the impact yet, but we start with ourselves being self-sufficient,
01:42and hopefully it can be useful to help the national economy. Hopefully in the future
01:46we can help the government, because the scale is at a household scale, not an industrial
01:51scale. So the impact on price fluctuations in the market has not been felt yet.
01:56Inflation once ran hot in Indonesia, Southeast Asia's largest economy. But in 2024, it was
02:021.57 percent, near the lower end of the central bank's target range. It fell even further
02:08in the months leading to this year's Ramadan, thanks to electricity subsidies. And economists
02:14predict it will stay on target in the months ahead.