VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Mar. 8 - The Indonesian finance ministry has urged the Papua provincial government to allocate an endowment fund to finance human resources development and education for native Papuans.

The fund could be allocated from Papua Province's annual budget, Director of the Finance Ministry's Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP) Scholarship Program Dwi Larso said.

"To manage this endowment fund, the Finance Ministry's LPDP model can be adopted," he was quoted by ANTARA as saying on Sunday.

Dwi Larso recently spoke at a training on managing scholarship scheme, held for civil servants of Papua Province's Human Resources Development Agency in Jakarta.

The LPDP now manages an endowment fund, totaling Rp70 trillion, to finance scholarship awardees coming from various parts of Indonesia, he said.

The LPDP financed 28,000 scholarship recipients, and 13,000 of them had completed their higher education programs, Larso said.

The Papua provincial administration could adopt such a similar endowment fund for education as that of the LPDP to support its human resources development endeavors.

The funding resources could be the Papua provincial government's annual budget, special autonomy funds, or other resources, he said.

By having this endowment fund for education, the Papua provincial administration would more easily finance its human resources development, education, and research programs.

Scientists, funded by this endowment fund to conduct their research projects, would help the Papua provincial government manage the province's abundant natural resources.

The development of human resources in Papua and West Papua remains a tricky challenge as the Human Development Index scores of these provinces remains lower than that of other provinces in Indonesia.

Referring to Indonesia's 2019 Human Development Index, Papua and West Papua recorded scores of 64.7 and 60.84 respectively.

The two provinces are reeling from a shortage of teaching staff on account of the fact that native Papuans not just reside in coastal areas but also in remote mountainous and hilly areas.

In dealing with this challenging reality, Indonesian soldiers stationed there serve as voluntary teachers at schools. (Antaranews)

Mar. 8 - The Indonesian Government is optimizing the role of industry to spur the national economic recovery by issuing policies and stimulus meeting the needs of businesses, according to an official.

"The Ministry of Industry has made various strategic efforts to increase the competitiveness of industry so that it can boost the national economic growth amid the pandemic," Eko SA Cahytanto, the Director General of Resilience, Territory and International Industrial Access (KPAII) at the Ministry of Industry, said.

The country's industry consistently became the largest contributor to the national GDP. In 2020. The manufacture, for instance, contributed 17.89 percent, he said.in a statement here on Sunday.

"In 2020, industrial sector exports reached US$131.13 billion or contributed 80.30 percent of the total national exports. Meanwhile, the investment value in the industrial sector in 2020 amounted to Rp272.9 trillion, an increase compare to Rp216 trillion in 2019, " he noted.

Currently, the government has developed 128 industrial zones and is constructing 38 more across the country.

In accordance with the 2020-2024 RPJMN (National Middle Term Development Plan), 27 priority industrial zones will be developed mostly outside Java Island. They comprise 14 industrial zones in Sumatra, six in Kalimantan, two in Java, three in Sulawesi. and Maluku, one in Papua, and one in Nusa Tenggara.

The Ministry of Industry has also been very active in accelerating the development of the halal industrial zones.

The government has been making efforts to boost the competitiveness of the national industry through the application of the Making Indonesia road map.

This program is to prioritize the development of seven industrial fileds in implementing digital technology in their production processes to make them more efficient and competitive.

The seven priority sectors are the food and beverage industry, chemical, textile and clothing, automotive, electronics, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices.

"These sectors are capable of providing contribution more than 60 percent to the national GDP. Hence, it is hoped that Indonesia will be in the top 10 of the strongest economies in the world by 2030," he said.

In addition to, in order to attract global investment and expand the export market for the industrial sector, the Ministry of Industry is seeking Indonesia's participation as a partner country for the Hannover Messe 2021 Digital Edition which will take place from April 12 to 16, 2021.

The government has also encouraged the industrial sector to expand non-traditional markets such as Africa, South Asia and Eastern Europe, particularly. (Antaranews)

Mar. 8 -  The value of West Sumatra's exports reached US$212.08 million in January 2021, or a decrease by 8.33 percent from US$231.06 million in the previous month.

"In December 2020, West Sumatra's exports reached US$231.06 million, but in January 2021 the vale fell to US$212.08 million," Herum Fajarwati, Head of West Sumatra's Statistics Office (BPS), said here on Sunday.

The province's major exports in January 2021 included animal and vegetable fat and oil valued at US$166.06 million, and rubber and rubber products At US$15.42 million.

Among main destination countries of the exports were Pakistan with total export value at US$65.97 million and India at US$45.01 million.

In contrast, in January 2021, West Sumatra's import value stood at US$17.61 million, an increase of 44.56 percent compared to that in the previous month.

The province's imports included mineral fuels valued US$10.33 million, and food industry's waste at US$3.66 million.

From January to February 2021, 1.8 thousand tons of mangosteen from West Sumatra were exported to China using special aircraft from Minangkabau International Airport.

Padang's Agriculture Quarantine Head Iswan Haryanto said that despite flight access restriction owing to the pandemic, shipments of agricultural commodities from West Sumatra to foreign countries was not affected significantly.

The province's mangosteen exporters had chartered special aircraft for a Padang-Guangzhou flight route, he said.

State-owned cement company PT Semen Padang also exported cement and clinker to three destination countries, namely Maldives, Australia and Banglasdeh in January and February 2021.

"From early January to mid-February 2021, the Semen Indonesia Group, through PT Semen Padang, had exported 333,532,391 metric tons of cement and clinker," the Group's Sale Manager Rahman Kurniawan said.

The cement and clinker exports continued to increase, because cement and clinker shipments were still ongoing, he added.

The company exported two types of cement and clinker, namely OPC 52.5 N with an export volume reaching 15,000 MT to Australia, and OPC 42.5 N reaching 21,924,180 MT which was exported to Maldives.

Meanwhile, the Type I clinker was exported to Bangladesh with a total volume of more than 296,608,211 MT. (Antaranews)

Mar. 8 - Auckland, New Zealand’s biggest city, emerged on Sunday from a strict weeklong lockdown imposed after a community cluster of the more contagious British coronavirus variant.

There were no new local COVID-19 cases recorded on Sunday, health officials said, marking a full week of no community transmissions across the country.

Footage on TVNZ, New Zealand’s state-owned television network, showed people lining up at coffee shops on Sunday morning with many saying they were feeling relieved.

Auckland, a city of nearly two million, will continue to have limits on public gathering and masks are obligatory on public transport. Restrictions might be further eased on Friday.

Neighbouring Australia also had no local COVID-19 cases on Sunday, making it the 37th day of no infections this year. There have been no related deaths in 2021.

Swift public health measures combined with aggressive contact tracing, border closures and compulsory quarantine for travellers have been credited with making New Zealand and Australia highly successful in keeping the pandemic from spreading.

Both countries saw their economies recovering speedily in the second part of 2020. Australia’s economy expanded at a much faster-than-expected pace in the final quarter of last year and all signs were that 2021 has started on a firm footing too.

Coronavirus inoculation began in both countries, with the vaccination rollout in Australia becoming slightly complicated after Italy blocked a shipment of the AstraZeneca’s vaccine.

Australia’s Health Minister Greg Hunt, among the first receive the University of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine on Sunday after an earlier shipment, said the rollout is on track.

Inoculation with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine started in February, but most Australians will be vaccinated with the University of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.

The weekly number of administered doses is expected to reach 1 million by the end of March when CSL Ltd begins to locally produce 50 million of the AstraZeneca doses.

The government is spending more than AUD6 billion ($4.6 billion) to support the vaccine rollout with contracts for over 150 million doses of various COVID-19 vaccines. (Reuters)