JAKARTA - Indonesia's budget deficit target will be kept at 5.7% of gross domestic product and the government will cut allocation for other areas to cover for rising spending on health care and welfare programmes, its finance minister said on Wednesday.

Sri Mulyani Indrawati also in an online news conference said 150.8 trillion rupiah of the government's cash reserves will be used to reduce bond issuance target for the year.

The minister has previously announced the government has increased its COVID-19 response budget to 744.75 trillion rupiah ($51.22 billion) from 699.43 trillion rupiah previously.

($1 = 14,540.0000 rupiah)

(Reporting by Gayatri Suroyo and Tabita Diela; Editing by Toby Chopra) ((gayatri.suroyo@thomsonreuters.com; +622129927609; Reuters Messaging: gayatri.suroyo.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))