Authors: Deasy Pane, Bappenas and Donny Pasaribu, ANU
The COVID-19 pandemic is causing a slowdown in all parts of the world, but its impacts on exporters of textiles and textile products are hitting developing countries hard. The sector is one of the main exporters for many developing countries because its production process is generally labour-intensive and requires little formal training. The effects of the pandemic on the textile industry are especially concerning because the sector is a large source of employment in developing countries, including in Indonesia.
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Authors: Krisna Gupta and Andree Surianta, ANU
The Indonesia–Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IA-CEPA) came into effect on 5 July 2020. It is intended to facilitate less restrictive movement of goods, services and investment between the two countries. As attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) is a top priority for Indonesian President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo, a freer flow of investment from Australia is certainly welcomed. But while IA-CEPA holds promise for trade, there are issues that will undermine its effectiveness in helping Indonesia attract increased FDI. Read more…
Author: Muhammad Beni Saputra, UIN Sulthan Thaha Saifuddin Jambi
In his visit to Australia early in 2020 to ratify the Indonesia–Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IA-CEPA), Indonesian President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo announced that Australia’s Monash University will open a branch in Indonesia. The historic initiative is intended to improve Indonesia’s human capital — Jokowi’s top priority in his second term in office. But Indonesia’s university reform must centre around incentivising its own academics to publish better research.
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Author: Ashley Vines, University of Melbourne
Indonesia is Australia’s oldest trading partner, with Aboriginal people from northern Australia having traded goods and produce with Makassan people long before European settlement. But this long-standing trade connection remains underdeveloped given the size, complimentary economies and proximity of the two countries. This is particularly the case in the agricultural sector.
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Author: Rainer Heufers, Center for Indonesian Policy Studies
Governments around the world have been borrowing money during the COVID-19 crisis to fund programs to protect vulnerable citizens. Additional debt is deemed acceptable because problems are not directly related to unsound economic policies but to a pandemic beyond government control. Yet sound policies matter more than ever. Read more…
Author: Editorial Board, ANU
Australia’s official outlook on the strategic environment in its region has darkened. On 1 July, Prime Minister Scott Morrison launched the Department of Defence’s Strategic Update, which ‘sets out the challenges in Australia’s strategic environment and the implications for [d]efence planning’.
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Author: Evan A Laksmana, CSIS Indonesia
Australia launched its 2020 Defence Strategic Update this month to bring defence policy up to speed with the deteriorating strategic environment in the Indo-Pacific, marked by the rapid military modernisation in the region, sharpening US–China strategic competition, and the rise of ’grey-zone’ forms of assertiveness and coercion to achieve strategic goals without provoking conflict. Read more…
Authors: Donny Pasaribu and Krisna Gupta, ANU
Predictions of recessions in countries affected by COVID-19 no longer surprise anyone, but the outlook may be getting even worse for commodity-exporting countries. The World Bank forecasts that the economies of commodity-exporting developing countries will shrink by 4.8 per cent, a much sharper decline than other developing countries. This is important for Indonesia, where natural resources — especially oil, gas, coal and palm oil — have an outsized role in the economy.
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Authors: Anisha Maulida, CSIS Indonesia and Bayu Arif Ramadhan, Brawijaya University
In May, a viral video allegedly showed a Chinese fishing crewman dumping the dead body of an Indonesian seafarer in waters near New Zealand. There have been four Indonesian deaths in six months linked to the same Chinese ship, the Long Xin 629. According to the ship’s captain, every crewman who dies from an infectious disease is buried at sea, despite contractual obligations to return the bodies to their home countries. Read more…
Authors: Aristyo Rizka Darmawan and Arie Afriansyah, University of Indonesia
In June, four years after the Hague’s 2016 South China Sea tribunal ruling, Indonesia put forward a formal diplomatic note to the UN. This was in response to Malaysia’s 2019 continental shelf submission that objected to China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea, including the area bounded by China’s nine-dash line. It said that ‘Indonesia is not bound by any claims made in contravention to international law’.
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Author: Lili Yan Ing, ERIA and Yessi Vadila, Indonesian Ministry of Trade
COVID-19 is a wake-up call for the world. The pandemic has brought some of the worst economic impacts since World War II. While some Eastern countries seem much better prepared than their Western peers in terms of handling infections, testing and mitigating the pandemic’s economic impacts, the poorest countries will be hit hardest. Read more…
Authors: Arianto Patunru and Krisna Gupta, ANU
By 16 June 2020, Indonesia had recorded 39,294 cases of COVID-19, second only to Singapore in Southeast Asia. Indonesia’s death toll tops the region with 2198 lives lost. The government has drawn a lot of criticism for its slow response to the pandemic — from the lack of testing to ineffective physical distancing measures. The fear of the infection spreading has also shaped economic policies, including trade.
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Author: Brad Setser, Council on Foreign Relations
Social distancing has become the primary tool for protecting public health amid the coronavirus pandemic, and its inevitable impact on economic life has required governments to provide income and support to those who can no longer work, even as spending on public health rises. Nearly all governments globally are now running large fiscal deficits, and a sharp rise in the stock of public debt globally is expected. Asian countries, though, are well-suited to handle this increase in public debt — with some exceptions.
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Author: Raina MacIntyre, UNSW
COVID-19’s unprecedented health, economic, social and geopolitical impacts are still unfolding. It is often compared to the 1918 Spanish flu because both pandemics have similar fatality rates, but the world has become much more dependent on global supply chains, travel and trade. Read more…
Author: Abidah B Setyowati, ANU
Major disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic show how modern societies depend on access to electricity. With millions of people confined to their homes, distant modes of learning and working — as well as online streaming for entertainment — are now an everyday reality around the globe. Electricity is also critical to operating medical equipment to treat those badly infected with COVID-19. But the comfort of being able to work, learn and play from home should not be taken for granted.
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