2:42 PM MYT
JAKARTA (The Jakarta Post/ANN): Competition in Indonesia’s heavy equipment market, which has already been hit hard by depressed mineral prices and investment during the Covid-19 pandemic, will become much fiercer with the entry of more Chinese products.
LiuGong, a leading Chinese heavy equipment manufacturer, entered the market only a few months ago but has gained 4 per cent of the national market, said Eddy Rodianto, chief financial officer of publicly listed PT Intraco Penta (INTA).
But American, European and Japanese equipment firms such as Caterpillar, Volvo, Hitachi and Komatsu remain the market leaders in the country.
INTA is a business group engaged in heavy equipment engineering, distribution, maintenance services, financing and steam power generation in Bengkulu and Batam.
Indonesia s Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Sandiaga Uno. - Bloomberg
JAKARTA (The Jakarta Post/ANN): Recently installed Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Sandiaga Uno has pledged to focus on reviving the pandemic-stricken tourism industry next year.
The businessman-turned-politician committed, during his live-broadcast inauguration ceremony in Jakarta on Dec 23, to developing the nation’s five “super-priority” tourist destinations – sometimes called the “five new Balis” – at the behest of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.
The five destinations are Lake Toba in North Sumatra, Borobudur in Central Java, Labuan Bajo in East Nusa Tenggara, Mandalika in West Nusa Tenggara and Likupang in North Sulawesi.
2:19 PM MYT
JAKARTA (The Jakarta Post/ANN): With an increasing number of Covid-19 cases and hospitalisations in the Indonesian capital city, a doctors association has called for residents of Jakarta to stay at home during the Christmas and New Year holidays to prevent a further spike in cases.
The hospital bed occupancy rate in the city s 98 Covid-19 referral hospitals had been increasing in the past month.
Isolation beds in the city were already at 85 per cent occupancy, while intensive care beds were at 80 per cent, the Jakarta Health Agency recorded on Saturday (Dec 19). Hospitals are full right now. Even if there are enough doctors, there is no place (to treat patients). It is concerning, said Slamet Budiarto, head of the Jakarta chapter of the Indonesian Medical Association (IDI) on Tuesday (Dec 22), as quoted by kompas.com.
12:09 PM MYT
JAKARTA (The Jakarta Post/ANN): Indonesia’s peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms are looking forward to further growth in 2021, amid the promising increase of users and disbursement this year, and low bad loans ratio, despite the raging Covid-19 pandemic.
P2P lending platform KoinWorks COO Bernard Arifin said that while the company had experienced a decline in loan requests during the first large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) period from March to July, it had enjoyed an increase in loan requests nearing the end of the year.
KoinWorks has disbursed Rp 2.5 trillion (US$175.5 million) in loans to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as of November, a 38.8 per cent increase year-to-date (ytd) from Rp 1.8 trillion by 2019 year-end.
10:52 AM MYT
A Covid-19 patient prepares to leave the Pademangan quarantine compound at the former athlete s village in Kemayoran, North Jakarta, on Sept. 25.- JP
JAKARTA (The Jakarta Post/ANN): The Covid-19 emergency hospital at the Wisma Atlet Kemayoran in Central Jakarta has started a study on early Covid-19 detection through a conjunctival swab test, after patients reported experiencing eyesight issues prior to showing the disease’s usual symptoms.
“This could be a cheap and quick screening method to detect Covid-19 in patients in order to advance treatment, ” Tugas Ratmono, the coordinator of the Covid-19 emergency hospital, said as quoted by tempo.co on Monday.