VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Feb. 18 - Minister of Finance, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, has underlined the importance of adequate infrastructure in efforts to support inclusive and sustainable development in Indonesia.

"Issues related to the pandemic, climate change, and digital technology bring up challenges in the way of inclusive and sustainable development; one of the solutions is infrastructure," she said during a webinar in Jakarta on Thursday.

The pandemic has pushed stakeholders to make improvements and change their business models to ensure that productivity remains stable, the minister observed.

For that reason, infrastructure has become the most important factor in an era of disruption, especially that of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), as it plays a role in strengthening connectivity, Indrawati stated.

"However, there are still areas that are without internet connection. There are still schools and health centers that are not connected to the internet. For this reason, the government is focusing on developing ICT infrastructure," she said.

In addition, provision of roads, electricity, ports, and airports along with social infrastructure, such as water supply and sanitation, are also imperative in efforts to boost welfare, she pointed out.

The next challenge will be to obtain financing so that the provision of physical and social infrastructure for communication, education, and health can be fulfilled for the community, Indrawati said.

She said she has ensured that infrastructure financing can not only be obtained from the state budget, due to limited fiscal space, but also from the involvement of the private sector and other forms of cooperation.

"If there are limitations, we invite private capital. Indonesia has focused on overcoming the Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) with structural reforms, including formulating a Job Creation Law and creating an Investment Management Institution," she added.

She also emphasized that through this effort, Indonesia can develop infrastructure that could create a digital business environment and make the economy grow more inclusively and sustainably.  (Antaranews)

Feb. 18 - The Institute of Peace and Diplomatic Studies Islamabad held a seminar on the business, education, and tourism opportunities in Indonesia. The seminar aims to showcase the potential of each sector in accomodating Indonesia and Pakistan bilateral relations.

The ambassador of Indonesia for Pakistan Adam T. Tugio and Pakistan's ambassador to Indonesia Muhammad Hassan attended the event and conveyed several key points.

Adam T. Tugio said that some of the export opportunities to Pakistan is automobile production especially family cars and traditional product such as palm oil. There will be an agreement between the two countries to explore and expand their market.

Other than that, education is also a cooperation opportunity. Punjab University in Pakistan itself has established cooperation with no less than 10 universities in Indonesia. (VOI)

Feb. 18 - Hong Kong has formally approved China’s Sinovac vaccine for emergency use with the rollout starting on Feb. 26, the city’s health secretary said on Thursday, paving the way for residents in the global financial hub to be vaccinated for COVID-19.

Sophia Chan said the vaccine met the “safety, efficacy and quality requirements specified in Hong Kong emergency situations” and that the benefits outweighed the risks.

Patrick Nip, secretary for civil service, said the government expected to receive a million doses of Sinovac vaccines on Friday afternoon with vaccinations expected to start on Feb. 26.

Chan, who was speaking at a news briefing together with Nip, addressed what she called “doubts” about vaccine safety and said all vaccines authorised by the government have been assessed to be safe by experts.

“The vaccines give us hope of returning to normal lives.”

A Hong Kong government advisory panel on COVID-19 vaccines said on Tuesday it recommended Sinovac vaccine for emergency use.

The recommendation came after the government exempted Sinovac from publishing results of its third phase clinical trials in medical journals due to the “urgency” for vaccination.

The BioNTech vaccine – the first vaccine approved by Hong Kong’s Health department - was required to have results published in a medical journal before being examined by the advisory panel on COVID-19 vaccines.

Nip said the BioNTech vaccine would arrive in Hong Kong before the end of February.

Residents will be able to get vaccinated at 29 centres across the city with five offering Sinovac and 24 offering BioNtech vaccines. Priority will be given to health workers, over 60s and those working in cross-border transportation. (Reuters)

Feb. 18 - India will make COVID-19 molecular tests mandatory for people arriving directly or indirectly from the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil in a bid to contain the spread of more infectious virus variants found in those countries.

India, which has reported the highest number of overall COVID-19 cases after the United States, detected the South African variant in four people last month and the Brazilian one in one person this month.

The government has said the South African and Brazilian strains can more easily infect a person’s lungs than the UK mutation. India has so far reported 187 cases of infection with the UK variant.

The government late on Wednesday said airlines would be required from next week to segregate inbound travellers from those countries. India does not have direct flights with Brazil and South Africa, and most people travelling from these countries generally transit through Middle Eastern airports.

“All the travellers arriving from/transiting through flights originating in United Kingdom, Europe or the Middle East shall be mandatorily subjected to self-paid confirmatory molecular tests on arrival,” India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said in a statement.

All flyers will also have to carry a recent COVID-negative report before boarding any flight to India, except in extraordinary circumstances like death in a family.

India’s coronavirus infections rose by of 12,881 in the past 24 hours to about 11 million, while deaths increased by 101 to more than 156,000. It was the highest daily increase in cases in a week. The states of Kerala and Maharashtra have seen a recent uptick in cases possibly due to further reopening of economic and other activities.

A government serological survey released this month said nearly 300 million of India’s 1.35 billion people may already have been infected by the virus.

The country has also administered 9.2 million vaccine doses since starting its campaign on Jan. 16.

A survey conducted by New Delhi-based online platform LocalCircles, released on Thursday, found that half of its 8,211 respondents were willing to get inoculated, compared with a vaccine hesitancy of 69% in the first week of January. (Reuters)