VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

China rang in the Lunar New Year on Sunday with its people praying for health after three years of stress and financial hardship under the pandemic, as officials reported almost 13,000 new deaths caused by the virus between January 13 and 19.

Queues stretched for about one kilometre (a half-mile) outside the iconic Lama temple in Beijing, which had been repeatedly shut before COVID-19 restrictions ended in early December, with thousands of people waiting for their turn to pray for their loved ones.

One Beijing resident said she wished the year of the rabbit will bring "health to everyone".

"I think this wave of the pandemic is gone," said the 57-year-old, who only gave her last name, Fang. "I didn’t get the virus, but my husband and everyone in my family did. I still think it's important to protect ourselves."

Earlier, officials reported almost 13,000 deaths related to COVID in hospitals between January 13 and 19, adding to the nearly 60,000 in the month or so before that. Chinese health experts say the wave of infections across the country has already peaked.

The death toll update, from China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention, comes amid doubts over Beijing's data transparency and remains extremely low by global standards.

Hospitals and funeral homes were overwhelmed after China abandoned the world's strictest regime of COVID controls and mass testing on Dec. 7 in an abrupt policy U-turn, which followed historic protests against the curbs.

The death count reported by Chinese authorities excludes those who died at home, and some doctors have said they are discouraged from putting COVID on death certificates.

China on Jan. 14 reported nearly 60,000 COVID-related deaths in hospitals between Dec. 8 and Jan. 12, a huge increase from the 5,000-plus deaths reported previously over the entire pandemic period.

Spending by funeral homes on items from body bags to cremation ovens has risen in many provinces, documents show, one of several indications of COVID's deadly impact in China.

Some health experts expect that more than one million people will die from the disease in China this year, with British-based health data firm Airfinity forecasting COVID fatalities could hit 36,000 a day this week.

As millions of migrant workers return home for Lunar New Year celebrations, health experts are particularly concerned about people living in China's vast countryside, where medical facilities are poor compared with those in the affluent coastal areas.

About 110 million railway passenger trips are estimated to have been made during Jan. 7-21, the first 15 days of the 40-day Lunar New Year travel rush, up 28% year-on-year, People's Daily, the Communist Party's official newspaper, reported.

A total of 26.23 million trips were made on the Lunar New Year eve via railway, highway, ships and airplanes, half the pre-pandemic levels, but up 50.8% from last year, state-run CCTV reported.

The mass movement of people during the holiday period may spread the pandemic, boosting infections in some areas, but a second COVID wave is unlikely in the near term, Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Saturday on the Weibo social media platform.

The possibility of a big COVID rebound in China over the next two or three months is remote as 80% of people have been infected, Wu said.

After China re-opened its borders on Jan. 8, some Chinese also booked trips abroad. Asia's tourist hotspots have been bracing for the return of Chinese tourists, who spent $255 billion a year globally before the pandemic.

"Because of the pandemic, we hadn't been out of China for three years," said tourist and business owner Kiki Hu, 28, in Krabi on Thailand's southwest coast. "Now that we can leave and come here for holiday, I feel so happy and emotional". (reuters)

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Sunday he would nominate a new Bank of Japan governor next month, as markets test whether the central bank will change the ultra low-rate policy of the dovish Haruhiko Kuroda.

Kishida initially told a TV Tokyo programme that he would decide on Kuroda's replacement by considering the economic situation for April, but when pressed he acknowledged this would likely be in February, "considering parliament's schedule."

He did not elaborate.

Kuroda, whose five-year term ends on April 8, has stuck with policies aimed at stoking price rises and growth, even with inflation at 41-year highs and double the BOJ's target, and as central banks elsewhere have been raising interest rates.

The terms of Kuroda's two deputies end on March 19. The three nominations must be approved by both houses of parliament.

The BOJ stuck to its ultra-easy policy on Wednesday, defying investors who have recently sought to break the bank's cap on the 10-year government bond yield. But with even Kuroda sounding bullish about wage rises, expectations are growing that the BOJ will end its expansionist experiment this year.

Last week's test followed the BOJ's surprise December decision to double the target band for the yield to 0.5% above or below zero.

Former BOJ board member Sayuri Shirai, an advocate of reviewing the current stimulus who is considered a candidate for deputy governor, said on Sunday the BOJ should make its government bond buying more flexible but that low interest rates are warranted.

There is also speculation about changes to a policy accord between the central bank and the government, in which the BOJ pledges to achieve its 2% inflation target as early as possible.

Kishida said it was too early to comment on whether the accord needed to be altered but said there will be no change to the "basic stance" that his government and the BOJ work together "to achieve economic growth that involves structural wage hikes and reach the price-stability target stably and sustainably". (Reuters)

Hitting the white sand beaches and eating mango sticky rice and seafood, Chinese tourists are returning to Thailand for their first trips abroad since China ended its strict COVID-19 curbs and reopened its borders.

"Because of the pandemic, we hadn't been out of China for three years," said tourist and business owner Kiki Hu, 28, in Krabi on Thailand's southwest coast. "Now that we can leave and come here for holiday. I feel so happy and emotional".

With China celebrating the Lunar New Year, Asia's tourist hotspots have been bracing for the return of Chinese tourists, who spent $255 billion a year globally before the pandemic. Countries from Thailand to Japan had depended on China as their largest source of foreign visitors.

Beijing in December abruptly dropped some of the toughest COVID restrictions on earth, which had battered the world's second-biggest economy.

Business owner Yoyo Chen, 32, from Yiwu in central China, said returning to Thailand felt like coming home.

"I'm here to eat seafood. Previously, when I was here, I ate mango sticky rice, which was delicious. Back in China I kept thinking about the mango sticky rice here. I'm looking forward to the food, as well as visiting the beaches," Chen said.

"Getting visas is very convenient now. The tourism industry is more developed here, there are lots of fun activities and cuisine, and the Thai people are very hospitable," she said.

The Chinese return was welcomed by businesses, despite some wariness about a huge spike in COVID infections in China after Beijing ended its zero-COVID policy.

"We're glad that China finally allows their people to travel. At the moment, we've received some bookings through March," said Woranuch Maungtong, 44, manager of Tip-Top Destination on the resort island of Phuket, which provides daily speed boats to nearby islands.

China's reopening raises hopes for the return of Chinese visitors, who accounted for nearly a third of Thailand's 40 million foreign tourist arrivals in pre-pandemic 2019.

The Thai government is expecting at least five million Chinese tourist arrivals this year, with some 300,000 coming in the first quarter. (reuters)

The Finance Ministry, through the Directorate General of Financing and Risk Management (DJPPR), has committed to developing retail state bonds (ORI), such as the SBR012 series, to expand people’s access to financial instruments.

"Of course, the government continues to be committed to developing the good instrument as an education of financial inclusion and expanding access to the financial instrument for the community," said Director General of PPR, Suminto, at the launch of SBR012-T2 and SBR012-T4 in Jakarta on Saturday.

The introduction of new features in SBR012, both in the context of a longer tenor and larger nominal purchase threshold, is intended to meet the varied needs of retail investors, he added.

There are two types of new features in SBR012—SBR012-T2 with a tenor of two years and SBR012-T4 with a tenor of four years.

The offered bonds are scripless state bonds. They cannot be traded in the secondary market, and they cannot be liquidated before maturity, except for early redemption.

The maturity date for SBR012-T2 is February 10, 2025, and SBR012-T4 is February 10, 2027. While the minimum order value of the bonds is Rp1 million, their maximum order value is different: Rp5 billion for SBR012-T2 and Rp10 billion for SBR012-T4.

SBR also provides quite competitive yields. From the tax perspective, it is subject to a tax rate of 10 percent, lower than that for several other financial instruments currently.

"We hope the issuance of SBR012 or the government securities (SBN) this year will continue to be successful, and in this case, we will definitely continue to provide easy access for the public to place orders and purchase the SBN, both through distribution expansion and through easy access to online transactions," Suminto said.

Earlier, the government planned to issue retail state bond instruments (ORI) of SBR012-T2 and SBR012-T4 series, which would be offered online (e-SBN) with coupons above 6 percent.​​​​​​​

DJPPR of the Finance Ministry has said that the retail bonds’ offering period will be from 9 a.m. (Western Indonesia Time) on January 19, 2023, to 10 a.m. on February 9.

Both coupons of the retail bonds offered are floating, with the floor rate set at the benchmark interest rate of the Bank Indonesia (BI).

Coupon payments will be made on the 10th of each month, with the first payment on March 10, 2023 (short coupon). If the coupon payment date does not fall on a business day, then the payment will be made on the following business day without interest compensation. (Antaranews)