VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Jakarta. Japan and the United Arab Emirates on Thursday agreed to work together on technology to produce hydrogen and create an international supply chain, Japan’s industry ministry said.

The collaboration, marked by a memorandum of cooperation between the oil-producing UAE and energy-importer Japan, reflects mounting enthusiasm for investment in hydrogen, which offers potential to help fight climate change.

Japan’s government set a goal in December to boost its annual hydrogen demand to 3 million tonnes by 2030, from about 2 million tonnes now, and to 20 million tonnes by 2050, as part of a green growth strategy to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The aim of Thursday’s agreement is that Japan should be able to import hydrogen produced in the UAE, which may be produced from fossil fuel but whose emissions are captured and used in industry.

The two countries will also cooperate to boost hydrogen demand in the UAE.

Hydrogen, mostly extracted from natural gas or coal production, has long been used in applications ranging from rocket fuel to making fertilisers.

But as goverments seek to address climate change, the goal is to shift to emissions-free green hydrogen produced using renewable power and to broaden its use to include replacing fossil fuel energy in industrial processes and using it as transport fuel. But there are still many hurdles involving cost and infrastructure. (Reuters)

Jakarta.  Finance Ministry’s Fiscal Policy Agency Head, Febrio Nathan Kacaribu, highlighted the urgency to increase the number of new jobs starting this year by offering convenience and certainty in doing business through the Job Creation Law.

"We must be able to create new jobs starting this year. We should provide convenience and certainty to strive to increase (the number of new jobs) this year and beyond in the coming years," Kacaribu remarked during the webinar on Indonesia Macroeconomic Update 2021 in Jakarta on Thursday.

According to Kacaribu, new job opportunities should arise on account of the fact that the Job Creation Law was drafted to simplify regulations and permits and concurrently improve the investment climate in Indonesia.

"The government has implemented laws and regulations, and we are applying it starting this year. Hence, we are optimistic that positive results would begin to appear this year," he remarked.

Kacaribu expounded that new jobs would be created since the Job Creation Law offers facilities to MSMEs in the form of legal assistance and protection, financing and fiscal incentives, as well as a single permit through a Business Identification Number (NIB), among other factors.

The Job Creation Law additionally enables the use of special allocation funds (DAK) for the development of MSMEs, thereby making it easy to form cooperatives and prioritizes UMKM products for government procurement.

Meanwhile, the Job Creation Law simplifies the licensing process for businesses by eliminating the initial capital provisions for a limited company (PT) as well as streamlines the process and reduces the cost of establishing PT.

Furthermore, village-owned businesses (BUMDes) take the form of a legal entity, expedite the patent application process, simplify and accelerate the trademark application process, as well as remove overlapping permits.

"We will monitor this very closely in 2021 and beyond for positive results from the real sector reforms that we have conducted," he stated.

Chairman of the Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) Hariyadi Sukamdani remarked that the Job Creation Law aimed at encouraging the creation of an employment ecosystem that accommodates current and future requirements.

Sukamdani noted that the trend of incoming investment had begun to show a correlation with the quality of employment, particularly if investment is encouraged for labor-intensive sectors.

"We harbor a sense of optimism regarding 2021, as the trend of incoming investment has begun to show a correlation with the quality of employment," he stated. (Antaranews)

Jakarta. Police Chief Gen. Listyo Sigit Prabowo has suggested that other Indonesian cities adopt the drive-through vaccination program implemented in Medan, North Sumatra.

"The police chief and military commander laud the implementation of the drive-through vaccination program in Medan," National Police Chief spokesman Insp. Gen. Argo Yuwono noted in a press statement that ANTARA quoted here on Thursday.

Police Chief Gen. Listyo Sigit Prabowo and Military Commander Air Chief Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto witnessed the implementation of the drive-through vaccination program in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra Province, on Wednesday (April 7).

"Other cities can take a cue from Medan's initiated drive-through vaccination program," Yuwono remarked, adding that local residents had demonstrated a high level of enthusiasm to partake in the program, including the app-based motorcycle taxi ojek drivers.

During their official visit to the city, the police chief and military commander were accompanied by Medan Mayor Bobby Nasution.

Before paying a visit to Medan, they had also observed the implementation of COVID-19 vaccination programs in provinces, such as Bali, Central Java, Riau Islands, and East Java, he remarked.

In connection with the drive-through vaccination program, the Medan city government had confirmed earlier to have secured 60 thousand doses of the COVID-19 vaccine for senior citizens and their companions.

"As of Wednesday, some one thousand elderly people were inoculated," Medan Mayor Bobby Nasution stated at the opening ceremony of the city's drive-through vaccination program for elderly residents on Wednesday.

The city's ex-Polonia Airport area is being used as a drive-through vaccination site where senior citizens and their companions can get inoculated, he remarked.

Three thousand elderly people have, until now, been registered on the Halodoc application for the drive-through vaccination program, according to Nasution.

Halodoc and the Medan city administration shared the view that the level of enthusiasm among the city's residents to get vaccinated was high, the Medan mayor noted.

Indonesia has been striving to win the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic since March last year.

To stem the spread of the disease, the government has rolled out a nationwide vaccination program since January 13 this year.

As of Wednesday, April 7, 2021, the Indonesian government had recorded 4,482,930 people to have received their second shot of the COVID-19 vaccine.

The second-dose recipients comprise health workers and frontline public service workers. The government also announced that 9,132,545 people had obtained their first shots. (Antaranews)

Jakarta. Uncertainty looms large over the arrival of 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines following the embargo policy in several producing nations, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin stated.

"Hence, the (arrival) schedules of 100 million doses of vaccine until now are somewhat uncertain," Sadikin remarked during a hearing with the House of Representatives (DPR) here on Thursday.

Indonesia expects to receive vaccines through duo mechanisms, with the first being via a multilateral mechanism with GAVI for the provision of 54 million doses for free and the second being to import 50 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through a bilateral mechanism between Bio Farma and AstraZeneca.

GAVI is an international vaccine alliance that offers free vaccines to eligible nations.

"The first problem concerns COVAC/GAVI owing to the embargo imposed by India, as the largest supply of the AstraZeneca vaccine is from that country. Hence, obstacles are being experienced," Sadikin noted.

GAVI-COVAX is a vaccine produced by the Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunization (GAVI), in collaboration with alliance partners of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

The minister noted that GAVI had reallocated the vaccines. Indonesia had received merely one million doses of the vaccine as opposed to the scheduled 11 million doses of the vaccine during the March-April period, while the rest had been postponed until May.

"They have also not been able to provide any confirmation. Hence, it is uncertain, and that was two weeks ago," he remarked.

Last week, his party had also obtained information of a change in receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine through a bilateral mechanism.

"According to the latest information we received from Astrazeneca, which was originally planned (to supply) all of them in 2021, only 20 million doses of the vaccines will be delivered in 2021, and the delivery of 30 million doses of the vaccines are postponed until 2022," he remarked.

On the occasion, the health minister additionally noted that out of the 160 countries in the world, only five nations produce their own vaccines: the United States, China, India, Britain, and Russia.

"Some of these countries have implemented a policy of not releasing vaccines produced in their countries. Hence, if we look at the fact, it is a competition for vaccines by all countries, except for those five nations," Sadikin noted. (Antaranews)