Below is a list with tagged columns and company profiles.
Latest Reports COVID-19
In January 2022 the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced it, again, revised its outlook for Indonesia’s economic growth. The Washington-based institution cut its forecast for growth in 2022 from 5.9 percent year-on-year (y/y) to 5.6 percent (y/y).
On 17 January 2022 Statistics Indonesia (BPS) released the latest trade data of Indonesia. The data show that Indonesian exports remained high (near record-high territory) in December 2021, while imports into Indonesia even managed to set a new all-time record (with a huge jump in imports of raw materials and consumer goods suggesting that economic activity is strong, although this could be a temporary phenomenon in the context of Christmas and New Year festivities).
When – at the start of January 2022 – we heard Firman Bakri, Executive Director of the Indonesian Footwear Association (Asosiasi Persepatuan Indonesia, Aprisindo), say that Indonesia’s footwear exports are expected to hit an all-time high in full-year 2021, it caught us by surprise.
It is time to turn our attention to tax, again, as we detected a number of interesting developments in Indonesia (related to tax) over the past couple of months. First of all, something that is quite rare, Indonesia managed to collect more tax revenue in full-year 2021 than it targeted in the 2021 State Budget (APBN 2021).
The tourism industry is among the most heavily disrupted industries in the COVID-19 crisis as restrictions made it difficult (sometimes even impossible) to travel while various tourist destinations had to close temporarily. Moreover, we assume that the psychological impact of the crisis on people is bigger than estimated (implying that people become less willing to travel to distant locations, in particular to emerging economies where healthcare is generally not at world-class standards).
On Thursday (06.01.2022) Indonesia Investments released the December 2021 edition of its monthly report. This report discusses a range of subjects - related to political developments, the economy and social matters - that were important and influential issues in Indonesia in the month of December 2021.
On 31 October 2021, Indonesian President Joko Widodo was handed a hammer by Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi. And it was a hammer and transaction with great symbolic value because it symbolized the transfer of the Group of Twenty (or G20) presidency from Italy to Indonesia.
Those who follow Indonesian politics and/or the Indonesian economy should know that November is the month in which new minimum wages are determined for the following year. It involves the minimum wages for the provinces (propinsi), districts (kabupaten), and cities (kota).
Over the past decade or so many analysts – including us – have pointed out that the structural deficit in Indonesia’s current account balance is a serious weakness.
Indonesia’s October 2021 export performance was impressive. Based on the latest data from Statistics Indonesia (Badan Pusat Statistik, BPS), Indonesia exported USD $22.03 billion worth of goods in October 2021, thereby setting a new all-time record high.
Latest Columns COVID-19
Around the globe, financial markets experienced a heavy storm – or a tornado – in March 2020 as coronavirus fears peaked. Particularly after the World Health Organization (or WHO) officially labelled the COVID-19 outbreak a “pandemic” on 11 March 2020 and a growing number of nations started imposing restrictions on the movement of people and economic activity, markets entered deep red territory.
The number of confirmed novel coronavirus (COVID-19) infections and fatalities have been growing steadily across Indonesia in recent weeks, especially in the capital city of Jakarta where around half of the country's total COVID-19 cases originate from. And the alarming matter is that this could very well be the beginning of the real storm.
As financial market turbulence has reached extreme levels over the last several weeks, recent events have severely limited this year’s prospects for economic growth in both developed markets and emerging markets. Of course, it is still too early to accurately assess the true macroeconomic impact of COVID-19, so we are still dealing with broad conjectures more than anything else. But the widespread limitations on that have been placed upon international travelers and the severity of business disruptions that have been seen around the world will almost certainly impact global GDP figures for the next several quarters.
