The Provincial Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) of Jakarta predicts that Indonesia's capital city may be plagued by a big flood in February 2016. The city has been seeing more rainfall in recent weeks and rainfall is expected to intensify and to reach its peak in February according to both the BPBD and the Indonesian Agency for Meteorological, Climatological and Geophysics (BMKG). In late January and February rainfall may be more than 100 millimeter per day but there are also estimates that rainfall can rise up to 380 millimeters in one day. This could cause a major flood.

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Indonesia's tobacco production is expected to rebound to 182,000 tons in 2016 according to the Indonesian Tobacco Farmers Association (APTI), up 7 percent from an estimated 170,000 tons this year. Higher tobacco production is needed as the country's cigarette manufacturers are producing more and more cigarettes each year. With Indonesia's tobacco industry requiring about 300,000 tons per year, the industry remains dependent on tobacco imports. Indonesia is the world’s third-largest tobacco consumer (after China and India) with about 60 million Indonesians - aged over ten years - being categorized as smoker.

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The Director General of Indonesia's Tax Office, Sigit Priadi Pramudito, unexpectedly resigned from his post on Tuesday (01/12) as it became increasingly clear that there will be a big shortfall, perhaps up to IDR 250 trillion (approx. USD $18 billion), in the country's tax collection this year. In the Revised 2015 State Budget the Indonesian government targets to collect IDR 1,294.3 trillion (approx. USD $94 billion). Pramudito is the first tax chief to resign from his post in the modern history of Indonesia.

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China's yuan (also known as renminbi) was included in the International Monetary Fund's Special Drawing Rights (SDR) - with a weightage average of 10.91 percent - on Tuesday (01/12), a decision that will take effect on 1 October 2016. Other currencies in the SDR are the US dollar, euro, pound sterling and yen. This move implies that the currency of the world's second-largest economy is increasingly regarded as a global financial instrument and will be increasingly used in transactions across the globe and widely traded on foreign exchange markets.

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