VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Feb. 10 - Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi paid a visit to Jordan on Tuesday to discuss efforts to strengthen bilateral cooperation, especially in the economic field, between both nations.

"My visit demonstrates Indonesia's commitment to strengthen bilateral relations with Jordan. This is the time to use this relationship for concrete cooperation,” Marsudi stated during a virtual press statement with her Jordanian counterpart, Ayman Safadi.

During the visit, the foreign minister was accompanied by directors of Indonesian state-owned companies engaged in the fertilizer industry.

Phosphate is one of the major items in the trade cooperation for Indonesia and Jordan, and both nations have developed cooperation in this sector for years.

"One of the success stories is the joint venture between the Jordan Phosphate Mines Company (JPMC) and PT Petrokimia Gresik," she pointed out.

Marsudi emphasized that the joint venture had run smoothly until now.

The Indonesian foreign minister was scheduled to hold meetings with several Jordanian ministers to explore further cooperation in the phosphate sector as well as to follow up on Indonesia's proposal to have a preferential trade agreement with that Arab country.

"We also agreed to complete all pending agreements, including the memorandum of understanding on counterterrorism. Hence, I hope all pending agreements would be completed this year,” she emphasized.

On the occasion, Marsudi also sought deeper collaboration with the Jordanian foreign minister in handling the COVID-19 pandemic.

The two foreign ministers deliberated on the importance of fair and equal access to vaccines and also drew attention to the dangers of vaccine nationalism, a condition wherein a state seeks to secure vaccine supplies solely for its own citizens.

"Cooperation is the only option for us to win the battle against this pandemic together," she noted.

Safadi welcomed the Indonesian foreign minister’s visit that coincides with the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the Indonesia and Jordan.

Safadi expressed strong belief that this year was the right time to bolster cooperation in all fields to mirror the strength of cooperation between Jordan and Indonesia. (Antaranews)

Feb. 10 - The United Nations Refugee Agency has held initial talks with U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration about Central American asylum claimants being processed in their own countries, but it is too early to estimate how many people could benefit from the policy, agency head Filippo Grandi said on Tuesday.

The Biden administration has already said it plans to restore a program which allows certain children in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to apply for refugee status in the United States from home.

“This is a complex situation,” Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, told Reuters in an interview as he wrapped up a visit to Colombia. “It’s very early days to come to conclusions or make comments because the work is in progress.”

Investment in migrants’ home countries will be key to strengthening economies and security and diminishing incentives to leave, he said.

“We need to also... work very much with Mexico to strengthen its own capacity to deal with the movement (of migrants),” Grandi said.

Thousands of Central Americans have attempted to travel north in recent months following back-to-back hurricanes in November which displaced more than 500,000 people, according to data from the International Organization for Migration.

Biden’s government has suspended 2019 agreements with Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador which sought to force asylum seekers to first seek refuge in those countries if they passed through them, before applying in the United States.

Grandi’s Colombia visit was crowned by a Monday announcement that the country will allow Venezuelan migrants to seek temporary protective status for a 10-year period.

The new rules allow Venezuelans already in the country and those who arrive during the first two years of the scheme to apply for the status.

The U.N. will up its efforts to help Colombia prepare for potential increases of Venezuelan immigrants, Grandi said.

“We are certainly stepping up our operation,” Grandi said. “It’s a variety of interventions that we’re doing, but we’re also helping the government at the legal and institutional level to strengthen this preparation.”

Colombia’s migration agency estimated on Tuesday that as many as 2.5 million Venezuelans could benefit from temporary protection, including some 770,000 it projects may arrive over the next two years.

Of the more than 1.7 million Venezuelan immigrants currently in Colombia, over 50% lack legal status. Colombia has been the top destination for people fleeing economic and social collapse in neighboring Venezuela. (Reuters)

Feb. 10 - The Indonesian government's COVID-19 Task Force reported 8,700 new coronavirus infections on Tuesday, which took the country's total case count to 1,174,779.

By mid-day on Tuesday, at least 1,937 new COVID-19 patients were hospitalized, bringing the number of those treated at hospitals to 169,351, the task force stated.

In the past 24 hours, 10,424 patients recovered from COVID-19, bringing the total recoveries to 973,452, while 213 people succumbed to the virus, bringing the death toll to 31,976.

The task force further revealed that most of the new cases were contributed by Jakarta, which recorded 3,437 new infections in the past 24 hours, while Central Java contributed 948 cases.

Other provinces that reported hundreds of new cases included West Java (775), East Kalimantan (550), and Bali (453). Meanwhile, Maluku recorded less than 10 new confirmed cases as of mid-day on Tuesday.

Jakarta also accounted for the most deaths with 50 people in the capital city succumbing to the virus in the past 24 hours.

Central Java recorded the second highest number of deaths at 48, followed by West Java (17), East Kalimantan (9), and Bali (7).

The task force also disclosed that 77,086 people in 510 districts/cities across the country remain categorized as suspected patients.

At least 67,888 new specimens were tested on Tuesday, bringing the total number of specimens examined so far to 9,791,928, the task force informed.

The Indonesian government has been striving to reduce the country's COVID-19 infection rate.

In this regard, the Health Ministry is collaborating with the National Police and Indonesian Defence Forces (TNI) to carry out vaccinations and contact tracing at the grassroots level.

"The coronavirus pandemic is a war. That is why we are here to work with the TNI commander and National Police chief to fight this war," Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said in Cilangkap, East Jakarta, on Tuesday.

The objective of the fight against the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic must be clear — it is specifically to curb Indonesia's infection rate, he notified journalists after attending a roll-call at the TNI headquarters, Sadikin remarked.

The roll-call was organized to reflect the preparedness of vaccinators and contact tracers that would be involved in Indonesia's national vaccination program and contact-tracing efforts at the grassroots level.

"Our strategy is how to develop solid intelligence capability to enable us to identify where and who will be the target group to join the COVID-19 testing and contact tracing," he explained.

The vaccination and contact tracing programs will be conducted in all community units (RW), neighborhood units (RT), villages, districts, and cities in Indonesia owing to the TNI and police's solid networks right till the grassroots level, he said.

In addition to working with the TNI and police, collaborating with communities is also key to reducing the COVID-19 infection rate as an objective of this "war", he affirmed. (Antaranews)

Feb. 10 - With its economy contracting 2.07 percent in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Indonesia is projected to return to its status as a lower middle-income country, the National Development Planning Ministry said.

“Due to the pandemic, (the economic growth) has been corrected,” National Development Planning Minister/National Development Planning Agency head, Suharso Monoarfa, said at an online press conference on the state of the Indonesian economy here on Tuesday.

The country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita and Gross National Income (GNI) per capita declined in 2020, he informed.

GDP declined from US$4,174.9 per capita in 2019 to US$3,911.7 per capita in 2020, while GNI declined from US$4,047 to US$3,806 during the period, he said.

At the end of 2019, the World Bank upgraded Indonesia's status as an upper-middle income country from its previous status of a lower-middle income country, with income above US$4,046, Monoarfa noted.

"If the growth in 2021 can reach 4.5-5.5 percent, and 5 percent in the next year, we will have an income of US$4 thousand; thus, we can return to the status of an upper middle-income country," he added.

However, if the growth remains constant at five percent, the country's per capita income would stay below US$12 thousand and make it difficult for Indonesia to exit the middle income trap before 2045, he said.

Indonesia recorded a less sharper economic contraction compared to countries such as the US, which saw economic growth dip to minus 3.5 percent, the Philippines (minus 9.5 percent), and Mexico (minus 8.3 percent).

Meanwhile, Vietnam recorded a positive growth of 2.9 percent, China 2.3 percent, and Taiwan 3 percent. (Antaranews)