VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Thailand's tourism industry accounts for about a fifth of the country's economy. (Photo: AFP/Alex OGLE) - 

Travellers to Thailand will no longer have to take a COVID-19 test before boarding the plane, under plans announced on Friday (Mar 18) as part of efforts to reboot the kingdom's pandemic-battered tourism sector.

From Apr 1, the requirement to take a negative test within 72 hours of travel will be scrapped, and instead visitors will be tested on arrival in Thailand, Taweesin Visanuyothin, spokesman for the country's COVID-19 task force, said.

Draconian travel curbs helped Thailand limit COVID-19 case numbers and deaths in the early stages of the pandemic, but hammered its crucial tourism industry, which accounts for about a fifth of the country's economy.

Thailand is currently recording around 25,000 new cases of COVID-19 a day as the Omicron variant spreads around the country, but officials hope this will tail off in time for them to move to a "post-pandemic" phase from July.

Seeking to bounce back from its worst economic performance since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Thailand has gradually eased travel restrictions over the past nine months.

But hotels, restaurants and other tourist-dependent businesses have urged the government to go further and faster to entice visitors back to the kingdom's beaches and resorts.

The tourism industry estimates that around five million foreign visitors will travel to Thailand in 2022 - down from nearly 40 million in the year before the pandemic//CNA

The International Monetary Fund has agreed to a surprise request by Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa (pictured) for bailout talks (Photo: Sri Lanka's parliament/AFP/-) - 

Cash-strapped Sri Lanka has secured a billion-dollar credit line from India to buy urgently needed food and medicine, officials said Friday (Mar 18), as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) confirmed it would discuss a possible bailout.

The South Asian nation is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence in 1948, with crippling shortages of essentials and fears it will default on its foreign debt or ask bondholders to take a "haircut" on repayments.

India and Sri Lanka formally entered into the credit agreement on Thursday during Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa's visit to New Delhi, Treasury Secretary Sajith Attygalle told reporters in Colombo.

"India stands with Sri Lanka," Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said on Twitter. "US$1 billion credit line signed for supply of essential commodities."

The latest loan was on top of another US$500-million Indian credit line to help its island neighbour buy oil.

Meanwhile, the IMF on Friday confirmed it was considering President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's surprise Wednesday request to discuss a bailout.

"We will discuss with the authorities how best we can assist Sri Lanka going forward," IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said in a statement to reporters in the capital.

Rajapaksa's announcement that he would go to the IMF - a U-turn from his previous position - increases the likelihood that Sri Lanka will seek to renegotiate some of its estimated US$51 billion in foreign debts.

Rice said the IMF had already highlighted the urgent need for Sri Lanka to implement a "credible and coherent strategy to restore macroeconomic stability and debt sustainability".

Around US$6.9 billion of Colombo's debt needs to be serviced this year. Its foreign currency reserves stood at about US$2.3 billion at the end of February.

Sri Lanka earlier this year asked one of its main creditors, China, to help put off debt payments, but there has been no official response yet from Beijing//CNA

Director-General for Solid Waste, Waste and Hazardous Substance Management at the Ministry of Environment and Forestry Rosa Vivien Ratnawati. (ANTARA/Prisca Triferna) - 

The Indonesian government continues to advocate for the reduction and elimination of mercury in the four sectors of health, manufacturing, energy, and mining, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry's official stated.

The ministry's Director-General for Solid Waste, Waste and Hazardous Substance Management, Rosa Vivien Ratnawati, stated during a virtual discussion accessed here on Friday that the efforts align with Presidential Regulation Number 21 of 2019 on the National Action Plan for the Reduction and Elimination of Mercury.

"The first (sector) is the health sector. For the health sector, in the National Action Plan, we have an agreement to eliminate 100-percent use of mercury in medical devices," Ratnawati remarked.

Some medical devices use mercury, such as thermometers and amalgam for dental fillings.

In addition to the health sector, the small-scale gold mining sector is targeted to fully eliminate the use of mercury in its practices.

In order to encourage the elimination of mercury in the mining sector, the ministry has assisted nine locations in the country in switching to gold mining technology that does not use mercury.

Efforts were also made to reduce the use of mercury by 33.2 percent in the energy sector and by 50 percent in the manufacturing sector, based on the National Action Plan for the Reduction and Elimination of Mercury.

"Why not 100 percent? Because even to reduce only 30 percent is already so hard because industries need to look for other raw materials if they do not use mercury," she explained.

According to a report from the implementation of the National Action Plan for the Reduction and Elimination of Mercury in 2020, the reduction of mercury use in lamp and battery industries had reached 374.4 kilograms.

Meanwhile, the reduction of mercury-containing emissions reached 719 kilograms in the energy priority sector, 4.73 tons in the health sector, and 10.45 tons in small-scale gold mining//ANT

Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto during a virtual grand launch of Sustainable Investment, Tourism, Economy Zone, Industry, and Infrastructure Project on Thursday, March 17, 2022. (ANTARA/HO-Coordinating Ministry for the Economic Affairs/rst) - 

Coordinating Economic Affairs Minister Airlangga Hartarto encourages sustainable investment in the country to encourage economic recovery and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets.

"Investment is one of the significant tools to support economic recovery from the pandemic. It can also support efforts to achieve the SDGs targets," Hartarto noted in his statement on Friday.

The minister conveyed that sustainable investment is the answer to make global foreign investment more resilient from various shocks and challenges in the future.

"Sustainable investment is a term that includes an investment approach that considers harmonization in the environment, social, and governance factors," he stated

Along with 192 other countries, Indonesia is committed to achieving the SDGs goals, one of which is the main agenda of sustainable economic development through the implementation of several predetermined targets. This agenda is also encouraged during Indonesia's G20 Presidency.

Through the G20 Forum, Indonesia encourages various recovery efforts, including vaccine cooperation, delaying debt payments for poor countries, establishing a Joint Task Force on Health and Finance, and making various economic cooperation efforts in the context of post-pandemic recovery.

On the other hand, the SDGs also comprise four pillars of capital -- in the form of human, social, natural, and physical -- that are important in the post-pandemic economic recovery process.

"In order to achieve the SDGs target, sustainable foreign investment is needed for potential countries to contribute in the acceleration of sustainable development," Hartarto remarked.

The minister later noted that transition to a sustainable green economy was a huge responsibility but also provided a great opportunity. The potential in the renewable energy sector must be followed by a clear scenario and roadmap, including in terms of funding and investment.

"We are optimistic that with active cooperation and participation from all parties, we would be able to accelerate economic recovery and investment in the green and blue economy, as well as the SDGs, to encourage sustainable economic development," he concluded//ANT