Comparative Analysis of Government Foreign Debt and Indonesia's Economic Growth for the 2021-2023 Period

Abstract

Foreign debt is a crucial financing instrument for many countries, including Indonesia, especially in facing the challenges of economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic. The period of 2021-2023 is a unique time frame with debt dynamics and economic growth interacting amid global uncertainty. This study aims to comparatively analyze the development of Indonesia's government foreign debt and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) during this period. Using a quantitative approach and comparative descriptive methods, this study processes annual secondary data sourced from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) and Bank Indonesia (BI). The main results show that Indonesia's GDP experienced solid and consistent growth, while government foreign debt also increased but at a more moderate rate. A key finding of this study is the downward trend in the debt-to-GDP ratio from year to year, which indicates an improvement in fiscal health and an increase in the country's economic capacity to bear its obligations. This decline indicates that strong economic growth has been able to outpace the rate of debt accumulation during the study period.