Indonesia cuts outlay on giant free meals programme to US 21 billion

Indonesia has trimmed spending plans for what could still be the world’s second-most expensive free meals programme, offering modest relief from fiscal pressures as President Prabowo Subianto advances a host of big-ticket projects.

Planned spending on the programme, which targets reaching 83 million people in the coming months, is now forecast at 350 trillion rupiah (US$21 billion or S$26.8 billion) next year after officials revised ingredient cost estimates lower by a third, said Mr Dadan Hindayana, head of the newly created National Nutrition Agency. That marks a 22 per cent drop from spending plans earlier this year.

This year’s expenditures are expected to total about US$7.5 billion, Mr Hindayana said in a recent interview. That represents a 29 per cent reduction from prior plans.

The recalibration of the five-days-a-week programme, aimed at improving health outcomes for students, children under five, and pregnant or breastfeeding women in the world’s fourth-most populous nation, could ease some investor concerns about Indonesia’s budget deficit outlook as the president presses for big projects early in his presidency.
Mr Prabowo has backed consumer stimulus measures, started rolling out tens of thousands of new community cooperatives and floated plans for an US$80 billion sea wall off the north Java coast.

Indonesia’s free meals initiative could be the world’s most expensive after the US, which budgeted US$29.4 billion for meals in the school year ended 2023, according to the Global Child Nutrition Foundation, a Seattle-based nonprofit that surveys such programmes. The third most expensive programme that year, at a little over US$10 billion, was in France.

One challenge will be to meet demand for food inputs, with the meals initiative sourcing eggs, chicken, fish, vegetables and fruit locally, Mr Hindayana said. He added that milk demand will soon outstrip supply, and that the government plans to import as