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“It was not easy to stay at the 5-percent level but the growth is still good enough amid the global economic slowdown,” BPS head Suhariyanto told reporters during a press briefing in Jakarta.The Jakarta Composite Index (JCI), the Indonesia Stock Exchange’s (IDX) main gauge, trimmed its gain after the BPS announcement to 0.4 percent from 0.6 percent.The economy was buffeted last year by the United States-China trade dispute that caused a cooling global economy, he added, but the country’s growth was buoyed by relatively strong household spending throughout 2019.Household spending, which accounts for more than half of GDP, grew by 5.04 percent last year, stagnant compared to the 5.05 percent in the previous year because of lowering vehicle sales. Indonesia’s economy grew 5.02 percent annually in 2019 because of weakening investments and exports, Statistics Indonesia (BPS) announced on Wednesday.Last year’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth was the weakest since 2015, slowing from 5.17 percent in 2018. This also means the government failed to achieve the targeted growth of 5.3 percent stated in the 2019 state budget.Meanwhile, the country’s economic expansion in the fourth quarter slowed to 4.97 percent year-on-year (yoy), the slowest since 2016’s fourth quarter, and contracted 1.74 percent quarter-to-quarter. Investment – the second largest contributor to GDP growth – expanded 4.45 percent last year, a far cry from the 6.67-percent growth recorded in 2018. Government spending grew 3.25 percent from 4.8 in 2018, while exports and imports contracted 0.87 percent and 7.69 percent, respectively, last year.Bank Mandiri chief economist Andry Asmoro wrote in a research note that the fourth quarter growth would be supported by “household consumption due to the seasonal factor of the year-end holiday”.“Going forward, GDP growth could strengthen to 5.14 percent in 2020 supported by higher investment growth due to a diminishing political year effect and an accommodative monetary policy, as well as strong household spending,” he added.The International Monetary Fund estimated in October that Indonesia’s GDP expanded just 5 percent last year before slightly strengthening to 5.1 percent this year, lower than the government’s target of 5.3 percent. Topics : read more
A total of 34 inmates were confirmed to have been infected with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), in a prison in east China’s Zhejiang Province, according to a press conference held by the provincial government Friday.The Shilifeng Prison in the city of Quzhou has been closed off, and every patient is receiving medical treatment, according to the briefing.The provincial department of justice said an officer of the prison was diagnosed with the novel coronavirus on Jan. 29. He had visited Wuhan, the center of the novel coronavirus outbreak, from Jan. 14 to 19, but he deliberately concealed the fact and went back to work in the prison after the trip. On Jan. 31, some others in the prison were diagnosed with the infection. The provincial health department immediately sent a team of experts to the site to guide the epidemic prevention and control work, including disinfection and isolation.Due to contact with the prison officer, many inmates were infected. The political commissar and the warden of the prison have been removed from office, and police have initiated an investigation into the prison officer. Zhejiang’s prison administration has carried out a thorough investigation to trace those who have had close contact with confirmed patients. All of them, together with suspected patients, have been quarantined for medical observation.Topics : read more
The textile and textile products (TPT) industry is appealing to the government for help as it faces imminent layoffs from decreased cash flow and declining demand as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.Secretary-general Redma Gita Wirawasta of the Indonesian Synthetic Fiber Producers Association (APSyFI) said that increasing garment imports would also leave domestic producers with an even smaller slice of a market that had shrunk due to COVID-19.“We want the government to provide solutions […] on how this small market can be given entirely to domestic producers to keep running. Because if such actions are not executed and we don’t have a market anymore, layoffs are not impossible,” he cautioned on Monday during a teleconference with industry stakeholders.Yet, garment imports are among a slew of issues that are threatening jo… Google Forgot Password ? Facebook industry textile textile-industry industry-ministry COVID-19 layoffs employee employees API Topics : LOG INDon’t have an account? Register here Log in with your social account Linkedin read more
Read also: Coronavirus savages US economy in first quarter, bigger hit still to come’American miracles, American magic’Berkshire Hathaway, based in Omaha, Nebraska, called its first-quarter setback “temporary” but said it could not reliably predict when its many businesses would return to normal or when consumers would resume their former buying habits.”We’ve faced great problems in the past, haven’t faced this exact problem — in fact we haven’t really faced anything that quite resembles this problem,” Buffett said in a lengthy speech on the country’s economic history.”But we faced tougher problems, and the American miracles, American magic has always prevailed and it will do so again.” “We are now a better country, as well as an incredibly more wealthy country, than we were in 1789… We got a long ways to go but we moved in the right direction,” he said, referencing the abolition of slavery and women’s suffrage.”Never bet against America.”Buffett is considered one of the savviest investors anywhere. His fortune of $72 billion is the fourth-largest in the world, according to Forbes, and in normal years, the company’s annual gathering in Omaha is a high-point of the calendar for investors, a “Woodstock for capitalists.”But the devastating economic impact of the pandemic has hit hard at Berkshire Hathaway’s wide range of investments, and the need for social distancing forced it to hold the annual meeting online.Buffett addressed his shareholders in a livestream flanked only by Gregory Abel, who is in charge of Berkshire’s non-insurance operations. His business partner for six decades, 96-year-old Charlie Munger, did not appear.Read also: Warren Buffett donates $3.6 billion to Gates’ and family charitiesGrowth by one measureBuffett, in a statement, played down his company’s bleak-looking net figure. He said a better measure of the company’s performance was its operating earnings, which exclude investments and are less subject to sharp fluctuations.By that measure, Berkshire Hathaway saw growth to $5.9 billion from $5.55 billion a year earlier. The brutal drop in the net — to a loss of $49.75 billion from a profit last year of $21.7 billion — resulted primarily from the virus-related decline in value of its broad investment portfolio, which ranges from energy to transport to insurance and technology.The annual meeting often has an almost carnival atmosphere, as thousands of fans and investors flock to Nebraska to hear from the celebrated “Oracle of Omaha.” Buffett, famous for his relatively modest lifestyle, turns 90 on August 30.In documents filed Saturday, Berkshire noted that until mid-March many of its companies were posting “comparative revenue and earnings increases” over the same 2019 period.Many of its companies — including in rail transport, energy production and some manufacturing and service businesses — are deemed essential and are able to continue working amid the far-reaching confinement orders.But their turnover slowed considerably in April, the company statement said.Moves taken by those companies such as employee furloughs, salary cuts and reductions, and capital spending reductions are “necessary actions” and “temporary,” it said.Topics : “It turns out I was wrong,” he said of his acquisitions of 10 percent stakes in American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines.Berkshire Hathaway had paid $7 billion to $8 billion, and “we did not take out anything like that,” he said.Between the purchases that took place over months, and the sale, “the airlines business I think changed in a very major way” and could no longer meet Berkshire criteria for profitability, he said.Buffett’s announcement may further hurt airlines already pushed to the brink by coronavirus lockdown measures, now looking to the US government for $25 billion in relief funds. Billionaire investor Warren Buffet said Saturday he’s confident the US economy will bounce back from its pummeling by the coronavirus pandemic because “American magic has always prevailed”.The 89-year-old made the sanguine prediction about the world’s largest economy as his holding company Berkshire Hathaway reported first-quarter net losses of nearly $50 billion.Buffett also announced Saturday that his company had sold all its stakes in four major US airlines last month, as the pandemic clobbered the travel industry. read more
Accepting food handouts for the first time has become reality for thousands in Spain where poverty has soared during the epidemic, echoing the 2008 crisis from which many have barely recovered. Jacqueline Alvarez, 42, is picking up basic foodstuffs in the working-class neighborhood of Aluche.”I cover my face because I feel really ashamed because I’ve never had to ask [for food] before in my life,” she admits. Worse than 2008? “This situation has impacted, first and foremost, people who were already vulnerable before the pandemic,” acknowledged Spain’s Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, “those who had not managed to recover from the effects of the crisis in 2008.”As the economic crisis took hold, unemployment soared past 26 percent in 2013 before dropping to around 14 percent last year. This year, it is expected to hit 19 percent. Although the current situation has not yet chalked up the same numbers, the impact has actually been worse. “The crisis we’re facing now has been exponentially much worse than in 2008… we have never mobilized as many resources as this in our history,” says Olga Diaz, deputy head of social assistance at the Spanish Red Cross. So far, the organization has helped more than 1.5 million people since the start of the lockdown in mid-March, “about 68 percent of whom have never come before”, she says.Unlike in 2008, this situation has “also paralyzed the informal economy” which many people relied on to survive the previous crisis, says FESBAL spokesman Angel Franco. Even before the epidemic took hold, despite the economic recovery, Spain’s poverty rate was “shockingly high” with its poorest living in some of the worst conditions in Europe, said UN poverty expert Philip Alston in February. Topics : Behind her, a queue of nearly 700 people snakes around the buildings, all waiting to receive something to help feed their families from an emergency food bank based in the neighborhood association.And such images are popping up increasingly across Spain where food aid handouts have leapt by 40 percent during the lockdown, the Spanish Association of Food Banks (FESBAL) says. For many people, it is the first time they’ve had to seek help, like Alvarez who has three children and says neither she nor her husband have had any money coming in for the past two months.”My husband is a waiter and he has been furloughed but we still haven’t received anything,” says Alvarez, who is of Honduran origin. Surge in solidarity But as the number of those struggling has exploded, so has the number of people volunteering to help out. “It’s incredible… sometimes they’re queuing up to give us food,” smiles Esperanza Vivas, a volunteer at Aluche’s neighborhood association. The Red Cross says it has seen the number of volunteers doubling. And in some places, offers of help have outstripped demand. “People are calling from all over the place saying they’ve got this or that [to donate], and volunteers too, we have more people who want to work with us than we have space for here,” says Miguel Querijo of the Order of Malta Catholic charity. At its soup kitchen in the working-class neighborhood of Tetuan, volunteers who have been helping since the crisis of 2008 work alongside other more recent arrivals like Elena Lizaur. “We lawyers have little work right now so I’ve used this time to come here,” says the 61-year-old Madrid resident. But the charities cannot tackle the problem alone. “Spain cannot afford to see images of queues outside soup kitchens as we’ve seen in these last few days,” Sanchez said last week. “For this reason, one of the government’s first commitments is to activate as soon as possible a basic income scheme.”The scheme, which will be launched next month, is expected to help out close to 850,000 struggling households that are facing “severe poverty”.Until then, Jacqueline Alvarez and her family will just have to do what they can. “I live day-to-day, I don’t think about the virus,” she told AFP. “I think about what I’m going to cook and what I’m going to give my children to eat.” “I work as a domestic help but my employers haven’t declared me,” — meaning she can’t claim benefits. The problem is global, with Oxfam saying the economic crisis caused by the pandemic could push 500 million people into poverty. In Spain, the lockdown has hammered an economy with one of the highest rates of unemployment in the eurozone, second only to Greece. read more
Shigeru IshibaA hawkish former defense minister and rare LDP critic of Abe, Ishiba, 63, regularly tops surveys of lawmakers whom voters want to see as the next premier, but is less popular with the party’s lawmakers.The soft-spoken security maven has also held portfolios for agriculture and reviving local economies.He defeated Abe in the first round of a party presidential election in 2012, thanks to strong grassroots support, but lost in the second round when only MPs could vote. Then, in a 2018 party leadership poll, Ishiba lost heavily to Abe.He has criticised the Bank of Japan’s ultra-low interest rates for hurting regional banks and called for higher public works spending to remedy growing inequality.Fumio KishidaKishida, 63, served as foreign minister under Abe from 2012 to 2017, but diplomacy remained mainly in the prime minister’s grip.The low-key lawmaker from Hiroshima has been widely seen as Abe’s preferred successor but ranks low in voter surveys.Kishida hails from one of the party’s more dovish factions and is seen as less keen on revising the post-war constitution’s pacifist Article 9 than Abe, for whom it is a cherished goal.The BOJ’s hyper-easy monetary policy “cannot go on forever,” Kishida has said.Taro KonoDefence Minister Taro Kono, 56, has a reputation as a maverick but has toed the line on key Abe policies, including a stern stance in a feud with South Korea over wartime history.Educated at Georgetown University and a fluent English speaker, he previously served as foreign minister and minister for administrative reform.He has differentiated his conservative stances from those of his father, former chief cabinet secretary Yohei Kono, who authored a landmark 1993 apology to “comfort women”, a euphemism for women forced to work in Japan’s wartime military brothels.Yoshihide SugaSuga, 71, a self-made politician and loyal lieutenant since Abe’s troubled term as premier in 2006 and 2007, was among a band of allies who pushed Abe to run again for the top post in 2012.Back in office, Abe tapped Suga as chief cabinet secretary, acting as top government spokesman, coordinating policies and keeping bureaucrats in line.Talk of Suga as a contender bubbled up in April 2019 after he unveiled the new imperial era name, “Reiwa”, for use on Japanese calendars after the enthronement of the new emperor.Suga’s clout was dented somewhat by scandals that toppled two cabinet ministers close to him last October.Shinjiro KoizumiThe name of Koizumi, 39, now environment minister and the son of charismatic former premier Junichiro Koizumi, is often floated as a future premier, but many consider him too young.He shares some of Abe’s conservative views and has paid his respects at Tokyo’s controversial Yasukuni Shrine for war dead.Koizumi has projected a reforming image on the basis of efforts to cut Japan’s backing for coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, but has typically taken care not to offend party elders.Katsunobu Kato, Yasutoshi NishimuraAs health minister, Kato, 64, was in the limelight in the early days of Japan’s coronavirus outbreak but then Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, 57, a former trade official, emerged as point person on virus policy.In 2015, Kato, a father of four, was handed the portfolio for boosting Japan’s rock-bottom birth rate, a task that met little success. He is a former official of the finance ministry.Seiko NodaNoda, 59, has made no secret of her desire to become Japan’s first female premier. An Abe critic, the former internal affairs minister, who also held the portfolio for women’s empowerment, fell short of backing to join the race for party leader in 2018. Topics : Taro AsoFinance minister Aso, 79, who also doubles as deputy prime minister, has been a core member of Abe’s administration. Without a clear consensus on who should succeed Abe, LDP lawmakers could elect Aso as a temporary leader if Abe resigns.In 2008, Aso was elected LDP leader and hence, premier, in hopes that he could revive the long-dominant party’s fortunes. Instead, the LDP was ousted in a historic election defeat in 2009, languishing in the opposition for the next three years.The grandson of a former premier, Aso mixes policy experience with a fondness for manga comics and a tendency towards gaffes. Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, Shinzo Abe, visited a Tokyo hospital on Monday, as concerns grew over his ability to continue in his post, because of health issues and fatigue from handling the coronavirus crisis.If Abe is incapacitated, Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso, who doubles as finance minister, would take over temporarily. If Abe resigned, he would stay on until formally replaced, which would require the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to elect a new leader, who would then be formally elected in parliament.Here are details of some likely contenders to take the helm of the world’s third-largest economy. read more
A consulting firm for Tokyo’s Olympic bid committee paid around $370,000 to the son of Lamine Diack, once one of the world’s most powerful sports officials, around the time Japan was picked to host the 2020 Games, Kyodo News reported on Monday.The report comes amid French investigations into the former head of Tokyo’s bid committee, Tsunekazu Takeda, for approving around $2 million in payments to Black Tidings, a now-defunct consulting firm in Singapore.The report said the findings, based on a review of financial documents as well as reporting by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and several media organisations including Kyodo, may shed light on what happened to the $2 million. Black Tidings made multiple transfers to Diack’s son, Papa Massata Diack, including some paid into a personal account and others transferred to his company, the report said. The combined total was around $370,000, it said.Papa Massata Diack told Kyodo that the payments were not related to the Tokyo Olympics. He declined further comment in an e-mail to Reuters.French prosecutors had been looking into whether Black Tidings paid the younger Diack to influence the father, who was a member of the International Olympic Committee and believed to control votes among African members.Takeda resigned last year due to the scandal, admitting to the payments while denying wrongdoing. The Kyodo report said he denied any knowledge of money transfers from Black Tidings.”At the time, I did not know anything that happened after (making the payment to the consulting firm),” he said.Reuters could not immediately contact Takeda for comment.The older Diack, former head of world athletics’ governing body, was convicted in France on Wednesday for corruption in relation to a Russian doping scandal.The Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics have been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, with the government planning to host the games next year instead.Topics : read more
The Tasikmalaya administration in West Java has declared an “extraordinary occurrence” (KLB) as the number of people who fell ill in a case of mass food poisoning, believed to be connected to nasi kuning (yellow rice) served at a recent event, reached 215 on Monday.Mayor Budi Budiman said the administration would cover medical expenses for all the victims of the incident, which took place at a birthday party in the city’s Cilange village in Mangkubumi district on Thursday.The majority of the victims were children as the event was held to celebrate the birthday of a businessman’s child. Budi said that the food poisoning was an unintended occurrence because most family members had also fallen ill. “We are now focusing on taking care of the victims. There are still 44 patients under treatment at the Puskesmas [community health center], 25 in Soekardjo General Hospital and other private hospitals,” Budi said as quoted by kompas.com.“Once the laboratory test results are out, we will find the cause [of the food poisoning],” he went on, adding that the results would probably come out on Monday afternoon.According to Tasikmalaya Health Agency, 171 people had recovered as of Monday.Some patients received treatment in classrooms of Puspasari Elementary School, located next to Mangkubumi Puskesmas, which served as an alternative emergency room.Previously on Friday, Tasikmalaya Health Agency spokesperson Titie Purwaningsari said that the food poisoning might have been caused by the use of expired food ingredients.“Usually, food poisoning from yellow rice is caused by expired coconut milk used as an ingredient. However, we will still wait for the laboratory test results to make sure of the cause,” Titie said.People have different reactions to the bacteria in expired coconut milk, she added, People with strong immune systems, for instance, are likely to experience mild symptoms like frequent urination. However, those with weak conditions might suffer headaches, vomiting or even seizures. (trn)Topics : read more