VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Vice President Amin visits the XVIII Kasuari Regional Military Command Headquarters Complex on October 15, 2021. (ANTARA/HO-Vice President’s Secretariat/uyu) - 

Vice President Ma'ruf Amin visited the XVIII Kasuari Regional Military Command (Kodam) Headquarters Complex in Manokwari City, West Papua Province, on Friday.

The visit was undertaken in the midst of his working visit to the provinces of West Papua and Papua from Thursday to Saturday.

According to the Press, Media, and Information Bureau of the Vice President’s Secretariat, Amin arrived at the complex on 6:30 Eastern Indonesia Standard Time.

Amin was greeted by West Papua Governor Dominggus Mandacan and Commander of the XVIII Kasuari Kodam Major General I Nyoman Cantiasa.

The vice president walked around the complex and enjoyed the surrounding scenery.

"The scenery is wonderful and educes our working spirit," the vice president remarked.

In addition, he lauded the arrangement of the complex, with several places of worship, to uphold tolerance and unity among various religious believers.

"It is extraordinary. The worship places are complete. There is a mosque as well as Catholic and Protestant churches. Later, a temple will also be built. It symbolizes religious diversity and harmony," he noted.

Furthermore, one of the places that also drew the vice president’s attention was the Kodam’s Green Kasuari plantation area.

"I really laud the area used to plant various commodities of vegetables, watermelon, and orchid," he noted.

The plantation can serve as an example for other military and police headquarter complexes, he stated.

"The plantation activity can be developed to be taught to the community. Thus, we will not face anymore difficulties in meeting their needs. Even, if it is possible, we can also meet the other regions’ demand," he added.

At the end of his visit, Vice President Amin planted a matoa (Pometia pinnata) tree and left a note of "Please continue your service for the beloved Republic of Indonesia."//ANT

Finance Minister Lawrence Wong speaking at the 35th Singapore Economic Roundtable organised by the Institute of Policy Studies on Oct 15, 2021. (Photo: Jacky Ho for the Institute of Policy Studies) - 

Singapore continues to study how it can expand its wealth tax system as the country re-examines its fiscal strategies in the face of key challenges such as inequality and climate change, said Finance Minister Lawrence Wong on Friday (Oct 15).

Speaking at the 35th Singapore Economic Roundtable organised by the Institute of Policy Studies, Mr Wong said Singapore has succeeded so far in running a prudent and effective fiscal policy.

He said the task at hand will only become harder with three key challenges - inequality, a rapidly ageing population and climate change - that will determine the trajectory of the country’s fiscal strategies.

These challenges, or "curves", as Mr Wong put it, are interlinked and will need to be tackled comprehensively, Mr Wong said.

“For example, an ageing population can exacerbate inequality, while inequality can make the lower-income more susceptible to the effects of climate change,” he said in a speech delivered at the start of the event.

To arrive at a fairer, greener and more inclusive society, Singapore “must re-examine its fiscal strategies” so that it has the tools to meet the task at hand, he added.

There are three key priorities behind the country’s fiscal moves, he said, with one of them being to uphold a fair and progressive tax system even as it considers different ways to raise more revenues.

One element of progressivity, according to Mr Wong, is to consider not just a person’s income but his wealth. Those who are more affluent should pay their fair share of taxes, the minister added.

Already, Singapore is taxing wealth in various forms such as property tax and stamp duties on residential properties, as well as additional registration fees on motor vehicles.

The country has also been able to mitigate some of the divergence in wealth seen in other places through its home ownership policy.

For instance, “heavy” public housing subsidies have allowed a whole spectrum of home owners to gain from the appreciation in home prices and equity, he noted.

Mr Wong said Singapore’s policies “should continue to promote broad-based wealth accumulation amongst Singaporeans”.

“But just as we have tempered income inequality over the years, we also need to guard against rising wealth inequality,” he added.

“That is why we continue to study options to expand our system of wealth taxes – in ways that are effective and add to our revenue resilience without undermining our overall competitiveness.”

Mr Wong said that Singapore is committed to the global effort of fighting climate change and is taking proactive steps to decarbonise its economy.

But this will not be easy because Singapore faces “a double disadvantage” – a lack of land space and natural resources which makes it very challenging to deploy renewable energy at scale.

It also faces significant risks of coastal inundation and inland flooding. “But our economic story has always been one where we defied the odds,” the minister added.

Among the steps it is taking, Singapore is “seriously considering the import of green electricity” and is finding ways to overcome the high cost, and technical and security challenges.

It is also actively pursuing new opportunities to grow as a sustainable finance hub, while investing in the research and development of new technologies like hydrogen and carbon capture.

The latter, said Mr Wong, will take time to bear fruit but can put Singapore in good stead in the longer term.

Meanwhile, Singapore has also been reviewing the level and trajectory of its carbon tax.

“One of the key levers for the green transition is the carbon price. Our carbon price today is too low,” said Mr Wong, adding that the tax review is done to ensure “it reflects the cost of carbon, and influences investment decisions effectively”.

The Government intends to announce the revised carbon tax rate for 2024 at next year’s Budget, while indicating what to expect up to 2030.

“We are mindful that businesses will need predictability and time to adjust,” he added.

Announced at Budget 2018, Singapore's carbon tax rate has been set at S$5 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions from 2019 to 2023. The Government said then that this would be increased to between S$10 and S$15 per tonne by 2030//CNA

A Qatar Airways crew member is seen at Sydney international airport. (Photo: AFP/Peter Parks) - 

Sydney will allow the entry of fully vaccinated travellers from overseas from Nov 1 without the need for quarantine, authorities said on Friday (Oct 15), although the easing of strict entry controls will initially benefit only citizens.

The decision comes as New South Wales state, of which Sydney is capital, is expected to reach an 80 per cent first-vaccination dose rate on Saturday, well ahead of the rest of Australia, which will enable it to bring forward the entry of overseas arrivals by several weeks.

"We need to rejoin the world. We can't live here in hermit kingdom. We've got to open up," New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet said.

Australia closed its borders in March 2020 in response to the coronavirus pandemic, allowing entry almost exclusively to only citizens and permanent residents who are currently required to undergo two weeks of hotel quarantine at their own expense.

As well ditching plans for home quarantine, which had been expected to replace the hotel stays, Perrottet said New South Wales would welcome all overseas arrivals.

But he was quickly overruled by Prime Minister Scott Morrison who said the government would stick with plans to first open the border to citizens and permanent residents.

"This is about Australian residents and citizens first," Morrison told reporters in Sydney.

"The (federal) government has made no decision to allow other visa holders ... to come into Australia under these arrangements," he said.

New South Wales will allow 210 unvaccinated people to enter the state each week, Perrottet said, but they would have to enter hotel quarantine upon arrival.

Australians have been unable to travel internationally for more than 18 months without a government waiver, and thousands of citizens and permanent residents in other countries have been unable to return after Canberra imposed a strict cap on arrivals to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Many of these are now expected to return via Sydney, even though some COVID-19 free states in Australia have closed their borders to New South Wales.

Qantas Airways said it would bring forward the restart of international flights from Sydney to London and Los Angeles by two weeks to Nov 1 and would consider bringing forward some other destinations that had been expected to start in December.

Major airlines like Singapore Airlines, Emirates and United Airlines have continued to fly to Sydney throughout the pandemic but due to strict passenger caps, most of their revenue has been from cargo. The announcement should allow them to begin selling more seats on those flights and potentially adding more services.

New South Wales, meanwhile, reported 399 COVID-19 cases on Friday, well down from the state's pandemic high of 1,599 in early September.

Neighbouring Victoria state, where vaccination rates are lower, reported 2,179 new locally acquired cases, down from a record 2,297 a day earlier.

The capital Canberra on Friday exited its more than two-month lockdown, allowing cafes, pubs and gyms to reopen with strict social distancing rules.

The country's overall coronavirus numbers are still relatively low, with about 139,000 cases and 1,506 deaths//CNA

FILE PHOTO: Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during a news conference at the prime minister's official residence in Tokyo, Japan October 14, 2021. Eugene Hoshiko/Pool via REUTERS - 

Japan's new Prime Minister Fumio Kishida launched a flagship council on Friday (Oct 15) to work out a strategy to tackle wealth disparities and redistribute wealth to households, in what he describes as a "new form of capitalism". 

The move is a crucial part of Kishida's economic policy that combines the pro-growth policies of former premier Shinzo Abe's "Abenomics" stimulus measures and efforts to more directly shift wealth from companies to households.

It also came in the wake of Kishida's decision on Thursday to dissolve parliament and set the stage for an election where fixing the pandemic-hit economy will be the focus.

"In order to achieve strong economic growth, it's not enough to rely just on market competition. That won't deliver the fruits of growth to the broader population," Kishida told a news conference on Thursday, calling for the need for stronger government-driven steps to distribute more wealth to households.

The panel will hold its first meeting later this month and aim to come up with interim proposals by year-end so they can be reflected in tax reform discussions for next fiscal year, Economy Minister Daishiro Yamagiwa told reporters on Friday.

Headed by Kishida, the panel consists of cabinet ministers and 15 private-sector members including academics and representatives from business lobbies, labour organisation and private companies.

It replaces the government's council on growth strategy, which helped lay out plans for implementing the policy priorites of Kishida's predecessor Yoshihide Suga such as promoting digitalisation//CNA