VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Several workers in Surabaya City, East Java, obtained certification to embrace the free trade era of the ASEAN in 2020.

Surabaya Mayor Tri Rismaharini remarked that since a few years, the Surabaya city government had taken preparatory measures in the face of the free trade, starting with the granting of free certificates to some workers.

"We have highlighted the significance of a certificate for people to be ready for the free trade era," Rismaharini remarked in Surabaya on Friday.

Free trade will directly impact the trade of goods and services, particularly in Surabaya City.

The Surabaya mayor pointed to challenges posed in the free trade era in the form of declining employment owing to the impact of the Industrial Revolution 4.0 and the requirement to meet product standardization.

Since 2016, the Surabaya city government had prepared free certificates to enter the ASEAN free trade era.

"We initiated efforts a few years ago, for instance, by offering free fees for certification for masons and electricians as well as other workers, including our brand rights and patents," Rismaharini stated.

In preparation for the coming free trade era, Rismaharini, concurrently president of the United Cities and Local Government of Asia Pacific (UCLG Aspac), reiterated the significance of certification in ushering in the era of global competition.

The Surabaya mayor has called on the public to come out of their comfort zones, as global competition would become stiffer in future.

Rismaharini remarked that workers in Surabaya had expertise in their fields. However, several of them had yet to obtain certificates supporting their work.

"I have to remind the people to be prepared for everything," she noted.

Rismaharini had launched an application counter for intellectual property rights (HKI) at the One-Stop Integrated Services Unit (UPTSA) of Siola Building.

The quota of some 150 free certificates for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) have been doled out, and the government will offer more certificates for the management of brand rights or patents to support local MSMEs.

With such a program, MSMEs in Surabaya are expected to be able to compete in the upcoming free trade era.(ant)

The Indonesian Embassy in Windhoek, Namibia, went all out in its efforts to promote Bali's Subak irrigation system as Indonesia's tourist attraction at the largest tourism exhibition in Namibia being held on June 5-8, 2019.

Paulina Gupta Wijaya, an Indonesian diplomat at the embassy's Economic, Information, and Socio-Culture Function, informed ANTARA in Jakarta on Saturday that the Indonesian Embassy's stand bore the theme of green rice fields and the Subak irrigation system in Bali.

The diplomat pointed out that the scenic Indonesian rice fields had drawn hoards of visitors at the Namibia Tourism Expo, as they are different from Namibia's landscape of predominantly deserts and savannas.

Along with bringing the spotlight on Indonesia's myriad tourist destinations, the Indonesian Embassy also seized the opportunity presented by the Namibia Tourism Expo to support superior export products and Indonesian handicrafts. Export products from several companies in Indonesia, such as food products, beverages, palm oil, garments, cleaning tools, and others, were showcased at this exhibition.

Indonesian Ambassador to Namibia Eddy Basuki was upbeat that the economic and tourism promotion programs conducted by the Indonesian Embassy this year would whet the interest of Namibian tourists on vacation in Indonesia and Namibian businessmen doing business with Indonesia. (ant)

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO) marked the first-ever World Food Safety Day on June 7, with emphasis on saving lives through safer food.

The FAO and WHO, in a joint press release received in Jakarta, Saturday, reiterated that safe food can contribute to economic prosperity and boost agriculture, market access, tourism, and sustainable development.

Adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2018, the UN has designated two of its agencies -- FAO and WHO -- to lead and back efforts to promote food safety worldwide, and the first World Food Safety Day, themed "Food Safety, everyone's business," was celebrated on June 7.

Food safety is the nonexistence of any hazardous agents in food that might be harmful to the health of consumers. Food-borne hazards can be microbiological, chemical, or physical in nature and are many times not visible to the naked eye. Bacteria, viruses, and pesticide residues are some common examples of food-borne hazards.

As a middle-income nation, with a rising population of 260 million, Indonesian consumers constitute a huge market for an already large and swiftly-growing food industry comprising "ready-to-eat" food businesses, restaurants, supermarkets, catering, and large numbers of street food vendors.

The Indonesian food chain's key elements range from domestic agricultural producers and food importers through distributors to the various points of sale and ultimately to consumers.

The intricate and quickly evolving ways in which food is available and accessed by consumers present major challenges to policymakers to ascertain food safety across all steps of the food chain.

"The FAO is committed to realizing a world without hunger. Ensuring that food is safe is very important in our agenda. The industry has a critical role in assuring that food stays safe at every stage, from production to consumer," Stephen Rudgard, the FAO representative in Indonesia, remarked while celebrating World Food Safety Day.

With an estimated 600 million cases of food-borne ailments globally every year, unsafe food poses a threat to human health and to economies, disproportionally affecting vulnerable and marginalized people, especially women and children, populations affected by conflict, and migrants. Annually, food and waterborne diseases claim the lives of an estimated three million people worldwide, in both developed and developing nations.

According to data of the Directorate of Environmental Health and the Public Health Emergency Operation Center (PHEOC) of the Ministry of Health, 163 outbreaks of food-borne diseases were reported throughout Indonesia in 2017. This indicates that food poisoning outbreaks are a serious public health problem in Indonesia.

Nationwide, food safety roles and responsibilities are segregated among several Indonesian ministries and institutions that cover fresh, processed, and ready-to-eat food.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries are tasked with regulating fresh food; the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) chiefly controls processed food; the Ministry of Health and local health authorities are in charge of overseeing the safety of ready-to-eat food; and the Ministries of Trade, Industry, and others also have their respective roles in food systems.

The FAO and WHO have emphasized that access to safe food is a basic human necessity and paramount to achieving food and nutrition security.

Food security can be achieved when all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to fulfill their dietary requirements and food preferences for leading an active and healthy life.

However, the FAO and WHO pointed out that poor sanitation and hygiene practices, such as unsafe food, have been the chief reason behind malnutrition in Indonesia.

Consumption of unsafe food results in food-borne illnesses that lead to malnutrition owing to loss of nutrients and low absorption capacity. Infants and young children are particularly susceptible to suffering from food-borne diseases.

The BPOM and Ministry of Health, supported by the FAO and WHO, have built the capacity of competent authorities in the area of food safety for conducting self-assessment on their food control systems.

WHO Representative for Indonesia, Dr. N. Paranietharan, echoed the significance of prioritizing safe food and stressed that access to sufficient safe and nutritious food is instrumental to leading a healthier and more productive life.

"We can achieve this by ensuring that quality and consistently safe food is readily available for everyone," he added. (ant)

The 21 economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) are expected to witness a 21 percent surge in energy demand over the subsequent three decades, partially owing to population and economic growth in Southeast Asia.

It was cited in a new APEC report issued by the APEC Energy Working Group and received here on Saturday.

Whilst industry continues to be the largest energy-consuming sector, two sectors – transport and building – will trigger increased energy demand, according to the APEC Energy Demand and Supply Outlook.

"Demand in the transport and building sectors is estimated to rise by some 30 percent, partially due to increasing incomes. Efficient policies will be critical to softening this growth in demand," Dr Jyuung-Shiauu Chern, the lead shepherd for the APEC Energy Working Group, stated.

Fossil fuels are projected to continue to constitute over 60 percent of the energy mix for the next three decades in the Asia-Pacific region, which comprises almost two-thirds of the global demand. Increased production and trade in natural gas and lower prices can facilitate its broader use as a substitute for coal.

"Significant progress is required to increase energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy and carbon capture and storage. This will help reduce the region’s greenhouse gas emissions to 8.5 gigatonnes by the year 2050 – a level consistent with the 2015 Paris Agreement ambitions," Dr. Kazutomo Irie, president of the Asia Pacific Energy Research Centre (APERC), who prepared the report, stated.

"Some 16 economies are projected to store 22 gigatonnes of carbon, mostly from the electricity sector, starting in 2030," Kazutomo remarked.

To meet this rising demand for electricity, APEC economies will require over 3,200 gigawatts of new power plant capacity. As use of renewable energy rises, economies should support variable production through quickly dispatchable thermal capacity and energy storage.

In 12 economies, including China, Japan, and the United States, pumped hydro storage is projected to enable support of variable renewables.

Even as growth of transport use is driving demand, the sector is projected to witness a shift towards electrification. China is expected to increase its adoption of electric vehicles by 17 percent yearly. However, electricity is projected to represent only five percent of the transport fuel demand.

In the building sector, implementation of the Minimum Energy Performance Standards can complement endeavors to label appliances in accordance with their efficiency capacity, including for air conditioning systems.

Broader application and enforcement of these regulations will bring the region nearer to its energy intensity reduction target of 35 percent for 2035 as compared to 2005.  (ant)