The budget cut was discussed during a meeting with the trade minister, the industry minister and the head of the Business Competition Supervisory Commission at the House complex on Monday.

House budget committee member Eka Sastra said the reduction was less than the planned 483 million rupiah mentioned in a presidential instruction this year.

“The lower budget cut is aimed at enabling the Trade Ministry to allocate funds for the improvement of the trade system and consumer protection,” he said.

Trade Minister Thomas Lembong said the 200 billion rupiah remaining after the cut would be spent on restructuring the supply chain of staple food, bolstering goods supervision and improving the commodities futures market and the online trading system.

On the other hand, he said, funding earmarked for non-productive programmes had been cut.

“We cut the budget to make spending more efficient, while maintaining the achievement of the programmes’ target,” Thomas said.