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A screenshot of Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati addressing an online press conference from Jakarta on Friday. (ANTARA/Youtube Kemenkeu/pri) - 

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati has decided to increase the budget allocated to the health sector to Rp185.98 trillion from Rp172.84 trillion to support the enforcement of emergency public activity restrictions (PPKM).

The restrictions will be implemented from July 3 to July 20, 2021 to contain a recent surge in infections.

"The handling of health issue tops the list of priorities in the PEN (national economic recovery) program involving Rp172.84 trillion (the previous health budget ceiling). Given the present developments in the fields of therapeutic and diagnostic vaccination, budget needs for the handling of health issue will increase again to Rp185.98 trillion," Indrawati said at an online press conference in Jakarta on Friday.

The budget allocation for vaccinations has reached Rp58 trillion, while it stands at Rp69.1 trillion for treatments or therapeutics, comprising Rp40 trillion set aside for settling patient claims, Rp7.3 trillion for provision of incentives to the central government's healthcare workers, Rp8 trillion for provision of regional performance allowances (TKD), and Rp20.5 trillion for health taxation incentives, she said.

Meanwhile, Rp4.08 trillion has been spent on testing and tracing activities, Rp35.4 trillion for handling other health problems in regions, while Rp8.49 trillion has been allocated for other activities, including communication, national health insurance coverage, and activities of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), she added.

According to the minister, the government used 99 percent, or Rp14.53 trillion, of the budget ceiling to cover COVID-1 patient claims in 2020. The funds were used to settle 200,545 patient claims at 1,575 referral hospitals across Indonesia, she said.

"If you were among the 200,545 COVID-19 patients last year who were hospitalized and discharged for free, then it was the state budget that paid your hospital bills," Indrawati remarked.

As of June 24, 2021, the realization of payments has reached Rp10.5 trillion of the ceiling of Rp10.6 trillion, she said. The figure is projected to increase to Rp11.97 trillion in the second phase in 2021, she added.

The government has also paid Rp4.6 trillion for the provision of incentives and death compensation to healthcare workers in 2020, she informed. Since early 2021, the government has paid Rp1.34 trillion in arrears towards healthcare workers' incentives for 2020, she added//ANT

Bank Indonesia logo. (ANTARA/BI Documentation) - 

Bank Indonesia (BI) has said it is optimistic that credit will continue to grow in line with its previous projection of 5-7 percent for this year even amid emergency public activity restrictions (emergency PPKM).

"So far, we have not revised it yet. We still estimate that this year's credit projection is 5-7 percent,” assistant governor of Bank Indonesia (BI) and head of the bank's macroprudential policy department, Juda Agung, disclosed in Jakarta on Friday.

The central bank has not taken steps to revise the projected credit growth, he added.

However, he said he hoped that the implementation of the emergency PPKM would help control the spread of COVID-19.

“Hopefully, this PPKM will reduce the spread of COVID-19," he remarked.

Credit growth this year has begun to show positive signals, especially in the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) segment, where it has reached 1.7 percent, in line with the improvement in MSME business activities, Agung informed.\

There has been an improvement in credit growth in the MSME sub-segment, except for micro businesses, which have still contracted 22.76 percent, while small businesses have grown 13.32 percent and medium businesses have grown 8.58 percent, he said.

Meanwhile, in the real sector, growth in corporate sales performance is improving, so it is estimated to grow positively in the second quarter of 2021, he said adding, the surge in COVID-19 cases needs to be closely watched, however, as it could affect the recovery in corporate performance.

An improvement in corporate sales has been seen in the main sectors of industry, trade, construction, and agriculture, which are expected to improve significantly in the second quarter, Agung said.

The demand for household credit has increased, as seen from the household financing demand survey, which has recorded an increase in the demand for Home Ownership Credit (KPR) and Motor Vehicle Loans (KKB), he pointed out.

"This increase in demand is in line with improving corporate sales performance and labor market conditions," he said.

Mortgage growth s far above total credit growth, which has still contracted at 1.28 percent, which is 6.1 percent .

Mortgage growth has tracked property sales, which grew around 13 percent in the first quarter, especially for medium-sized houses.

"Medium-type houses have rebounded even more than 20 percent compared to the fourth quarter, which was still experiencing contractions," Agung said//ANT

This handout photo courtesy of BC Wildfire Service shows the Sparks Lake wildfire, British Columbia, seen from the air on Jun 29, 2021(Photo: AFP) - 

Ottawa prepared on Friday (Jul 2) to send military aircraft and other help to evacuate towns and fight more than 100 wildfires in western Canada fueled by a record-smashing heat wave.

According to wildfire officials, at least 143 fires were active in British Columbia, 77 of them sparked in the last two days. Most were caused by lightning strikes.

"We will be there to help," he told a news conference.

That will include military helicopters and possibly Hercules turboprop transport planes, Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan earlier told public broadcaster CBC.

"Canadian Forces are ready to support residents," he said in a Twitter message. 

About 1,000 people have already fled the wildfires in British Columbia, and authorities are searching for many who have gone missing.

The village of Lytton, 250km northeast of Vancouver, was evacuated Wednesday night because of a fire that flared up suddenly and spread quickly.

The fire came a day after the village set a Canadian record-high temperature on Tuesday of 49.6 degrees Celsius.

"Today our thoughts are mostly with families that are grieving, that are facing terrible loss," said Trudeau.

"But of course, we also have to reflect on the fact that extreme weather events are getting more frequent and climate change has a significant role to play in that."

Lytton resident Jeff Chapman told the CBC he witnessed his parents die in the fire that engulfed the town.

With only minutes to react, the elderly couple sought shelter from the smoke and flames in a trench in their backyard, as Chapman ran for safety at nearby rail tracks.

From that vantage, he said he saw the fires sweep across and destroy most of the town.

His distressed voice could be heard pleading for help over the crackling flames in a video on CBC. The ground, he said, was too hot to go back for his parents.

Meanwhile, a heat wave that stretched at the beginning of the week from the US state of Oregon to Canada's Arctic territories has started moving eastward, late Thursday touching parts of Ontario in central Canada.

British Columbia also warned Friday of flooding from melting mountain snow caps and glaciers under the heat dome, which occurs when hot air is trapped by high pressure fronts, heating the ground//CNA

Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine - 

The United States will ship 4 million doses of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine to Indonesia as it battles a coronavirus outbreak, the US national security adviser told the Indonesian foreign minister on Friday (Jul 2).

In a call with Retno Marsudi, Jake Sullivan said the doses would be shipped via the COVAX global vaccine sharing program "as soon as possible", a White House statement said.

The two officials also discussed US plans to increase assistance for Indonesia’s broader COVID-19 response efforts, the statement said.

"Sullivan highlighted the importance the Biden-Harris administration places on Indonesia, Southeast Asia and ending the pandemic more broadly and pledged continued support and high-level engagement," the statement said.

Indonesia is the world's fourth most populous country and has been battling one of the Asia's worst coronavirus outbreaks. The nation has recorded record new infections on eight of the past 12 days, including 25,830 cases on Friday, and a record 539 deaths.

Indonesia has relied mainly on the vaccine from China's Sinovac Biotech, but has been looking to diversify supply sources.

Penny K Lukito, the chief of Indonesia's food and drug agency, said earlier on Friday it authorised the Moderna vaccine for emergency use.

Washington has been competing with Beijing to deepen geopolitical clout through so-called vaccine diplomacy, although it has said it is not sharing vaccines to secure favors or extract concessions, but to save lives and end the pandemic.

The Biden administration pledged last month to share an initial 80 million US-made vaccines globally amid concern about the disparity in vaccination rates between advanced and developing countries.

It has already announced plans to provide vaccines to other Southeast Asian countries - the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Papua New Guinea, and Cambodia.

It has also said it will purchase 500 million Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines to distribute to the African Union and 92 low and lower middle-income countries//CNA