Corona Virus Update #83    October 5, 2021

 

Cumulative number of reported cases: 4,221,610  (as of October 4)

  • Deaths: 142,238
  • Recovered: 4,049,449
  • Fatality rate: 3.3%

Rupiah to US: 14,260
Jakarta Stock Exchange Index: 6288
Reserves (US$ Billions): $144.784 (August 31)

Overview-Cases Dropping 33% Week-on-Week

Daily Covid-19 case detections continued to decline at a rate of 33 percent week-on-week through 30 September. The seven day moving average fell to 1,935 cases, the lowest level since early August 2020. In Jakarta Province, daily detections have remained below 200 for over a week. Testing positivity has been near the five-percent level advocated by the WHO.

Vaccination rates have risen to over 2 million jabs a day.  If current rates and vaccine supplies continue the government will attain its rate of vaccinating 208 million by March 2022.

The government extended its PPKM policy for another 2 weeks until October 18, 2021. Shopping malls, theaters, gyms, schools in some areas, as well as other public places are allowed to open although with limited capacity.

 

Travel-

Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, mentioned that if the condition keeps showing progress, the government will begin to open the Ngurah Rai Airport of Bali for international travelers on October 14, 2021.

Borders currently remained closed to foreign business and tourist travel. Exempted travelers are Indonesian citizens, diplomats and holders of work permits and permanent residency cards.

To further control the spread of Delta variants as well as preventing the country from potential threat of new variants of interest (VOI) such as Mu variant and Lambda variant, the Government of Indonesia released a new policy to limit the number of international travelers to 90 passengers per flight effective on September 30, 2021. Therefore, for all exempted international travelers (according to Indonesia’s travel regulation) who aim to travel to Indonesia must regularly check with the respective airlines or travel agents regarding the seat availability and flight schedule.

Indonesia Travel Restriction Details can be found here.

Visit Indonesian Immigration (https://www.imigrasi.go.id) and the Indonesian Embassy (https://kemlu.go.id/washington/en) for updated visa and entry requirements as regulations may change frequently

 

Economic

·     New Tax Bill:  On September 30 Parliamentary Commission 7 (Finance) approved new legislation on taxation that is expected to be approved by the full assembly this week. Features of the bill include: a carbon tax for business and consumers, higher value-added tax (from 10% currently to 12% in 2022), a “second tax amnesty”, revisions to enforcement, complaint mechanisms, and international cooperation.

 

Foreign Affairs-G20 Presidency in 2022

President Joko Widodo announced Indonesia’s preliminary plans for its hosting of the G20 Summit which will take place in November 2022 in Bali. Dozens of preliminary ministerial meetings lead up to the summit and Indonesia has begun forming working groups on many of the core issues to be discussed. The five ‘priority strategies’ designated by the G20 are: increasing productivity, building a resilient and stable world economy, promoting inclusive and sustainable growth, creating a conducive environment for partnerships between stakeholders, and strengthening global collective leadership. Indonesia will likely focus on vaccines and may even call for the suspension of patents. Finance Minister Indrawati has emphasized that the main menu item for the Finance Pillar will be tax reform. This includes global taxation principles, tax incentives, digitalization, tax avoidance practices, ‘tax and development’ and ‘tax certainty’. Other issues include macro-economic management, non-health Covid consequences for economics, digital currencies, sustainable finance, cross-border payments and financial inclusion. (above section based on reporting by Reformasi Weekly)

(sources: International and Indonesia news media, Bali Update (from balidiscovery.com), Reformasi Weekly, US Embassy website)