Foreign Cruise Ship Visits to Indonesia Increase

Tempo.co – PT Pelabuhan Indonesia (Pelindo) III recorded an increase in foreign cruise ship visits at Indonesian ports in the last four years. According to Pelindo III’s spokesperson, Edi Priyanto, the number of visits increased by 26 percent. “Last year, there were 116 visits,” he said yesterday.

Pelindo III’s data recorded 57 yacht visits in 2010, 76 in 2011, and 92 in 2012. The most visited ports were Benoa, Bali; Lembar, Lombok; and Tanjung Emas, Semarang.

During last year, Benoa Port became the favorite location among cruise ship operators, where 41 cruise ships visited and brought 41,650 tourists. Lembar Port received 25 cruise ship visits that brought 27,554 tourists. Tanjung Emas Port was visited by 19 cruise ships that brought 13,390 foreign tourists.

Edi said the number of cruise ship visits at those three ports increased from the previous year. The number of visits in Benoa Port increased by 17 percent, while Lembar and Tanjung Emas Port increased by 47 and 11.76 percent, respectively. “Although we are left behind by Singapore and Australia, the increase in the number of cruise ship visits to Indonesia deserves to be appreciated,” he said.

Last Thursday, the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) stated that the number of foreign tourists visiting Indonesia reached 807,000 in November last year, a 16.37 percent increase from November 2012, and 12.16 percent from October 2013. “This is the highest increase in the number of visits in 2013 because there was a lot of international tourism events,” BPS chief, Suryamin, said. [Click here for full article…]

Banning Raw Mineral Export, Government Invites Associations

Illustration of a coal mining. ANTARA/Muhammad Adimaja

Tempo.co – Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) Ministry plans to meet associations before the raw mineral export ban is implemented on January 12. The meeting is to discuss the implementation of Law No. 4/2009 on Mineral and Coal Mining.

“We need suggestions from 40 associations of mineral businesses,” said Director General of Mineral and Coal at the ESDM Ministry, R. Sukhyar, at his office on Tuesday, January 7, 2014.

He explained that the ministry is preparing a legal base, particularly a Government Regulation Amendment that regulates companies already committed to mineral processing and refinery.

“There must be no more issues regarding to limitations. Therefore, we are drafting a ministerial regulation that will be stipulated before January 12, 2014,” said Sukhyar. He mentioned that the government still has some homework to establish the limitations. He said the limitations on mineral processing and refinery for export will be revealed in two or three days. [Click here for full article…]

Indonesia’s First Satellite Ready for Take Off

The Lapan-A2 microsatellite (the black box in the center) undergoes an electromagnetic compatibility test at the Center for Science and Technology (Puspiptek) in Serpong, Tangerang. (Photo courtesy of Lapan)

Jakarta Globe – The bookish, bespectacled chief engineer of Indonesia’s first domestically made satellite briefly explains the six-year journey his team took before the satellite, called Lapan-A2, is ready for launch this year.

“It began in 2008, a year after we successfully launched Lapan-Tubsat, our first microsatellite, ” Mohammad Mukhayadi, of the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (Lapan), said at his office in Rancabungur, Bogor, last month.

“Then we started the development of Lapan-Tubsat’s successor. We call it Lapan-A2, and it’s finally complete.”

Lapan-Tubsat, also known as Lapan-A1, was built in Germany in an ambitious project that taught Indonesia the process of building satellites from scratch: how to procure components for production, how to arrange licenses and how to test the satellite until it is ready for launch.

Lapan-Lubsat was launched from the Indian space center in Sriharikota, in January 2007. Today, seven years after take-off, the satellite is still floating in space, though it began to slowly drift away from its orbit two years ago.

The 57-kilogram satellite continues to transmit earth surveillance video to Lapan ground stations, allowing operators to train themselves on satellite use and data retrieval methods, though the video data is barely of practical use.

“Of course, it is not what we would call operation qualified,” said Robertus Heru Triharjanto, the head of Lapan’s satellite bus technology division. “It is mostly for our own interest, to see how well we can produce pictures.” [Click here for full article…]

Nationalistic parties sell, but not Islamic ones

Jakarta Post – The history of modern Indonesian politics — represented by a series of political events in the post-1945 independence era to this day — has basically been characterized by a tug-of-war between nationalist and Islamic camps, the two largest societal elements in the republic.

The battle to gain influence and win the hearts and minds of the Indonesian public has always factored into general elections – obviously the most democratic arena to reap the fruits of months and possibly years of individual and collegial efforts to exert influence and promote each individual candidate’s program and each political party’s platform among the general public, in particular among those eligible to vote. The elections are organized in two tiers: the general election followed by the presidential election.

Ten general elections have been held since the country gained independence on Aug. 17, 1945. This year, the nation will hold its legislative election on April 9, and the presidential election on July 9.

All these elections, with all their various terms and practices, have been carried out under the banner of democracy. [Click here for full article…]

Bank of Indonesia — 2014 Outlook

Wall Street Journal – Indonesia’s central bank is facing a dilemma: whether to raise rates further — slowing the economy — or allow its currency to fall further.

The rupiah was one of the world’s worst-performing currencies in 2013, falling nearly 20% against the U.S. dollar. Foreign investors fled Indonesian stocks and bonds in 2013, looking to cut their exposure to a risky market at a time of rising U.S. rates.

Indonesia is highly dependent on foreign capital because it runs a large current-account deficit, meaning imports are greater than exports. The deficit has worsened as China’s growth slows, damping demand for Indonesia’s commodity exports.

Bank Indonesia took the tough decision to raise rates — by 1.75 percentage points since June — to attract capital, slow imports of consumer goods, and douse consumer-price inflation running close to double digits. But the rupiah has failed to rebound, breaching 12,100 to the U.S. dollar in mid-December, its lowest level in five years, and inflation remains elevated.

Fred Gibson, an economist at Moody’s Analytics, says Bank Indonesia has administered the wrong medicine, as rate hikes that slow growth also dent the appeal of investing in Indonesia. Annualized growth has been below 6% in the past two quarters for the first time in nearly three years.

The government says growth will rebound to around 6% in 2014, but many are less sanguine: The World Bank expects Indonesia’s growth to slow to 5.3% in 2014, while the International Monetary Fund forecasts growth of 5% to 5.5%. [Click here for full article…]

More Conflicts Feared in Election Year

A woman in Tangerang screams as riot police gather to monitor communal unrest arising from fraught local elections last month. (JG Photo/Fajrin Raharjo)

Jakarta Globe – When a child was killed and six buildings razed to the ground on Monday in West Manokwari district in the province of West Papua, in a clash between neighboring communities, it barely registered in the national media because of how commonplace such incidents had become.

It was the last local-level conflict reported in 2013, when such incidents increased by nearly a quarter from 2012. And if the government continues to overlook them, analysts warn, the number could rise even higher this year, with a correspondingly high death toll.

Neta S. Pane, the head of Indonesia Police Watch, a nongovernmental organization that monitors security and law enforcement, said at a discussion in Jakarta on Thursday that the potential for even more clashes was high this year because of the legislative and presidential elections in April and July, respectively.

He said that last year, his organization had recorded 153 community clashes throughout the country, or a 23.7 percent increase from 2012.

“As a result of those conflicts, 203 people were killed, 361 people were injured, 483 homes were damaged and 173 buildings were set on fire,” he said.

In 2012, he noted, the death toll was 154, with 217 people injured.

Neta attributed the increase in the number of clashes and the casualties to the lack of action by security forces to prevent the violence from breaking out or quell it once it had erupted.

“From the sheer number of cases that we saw last year, it’s quite clear that the police’s intelligence-gathering efforts have been quite weak. Their ability to detect threats ahead of time isn’t functioning as it should,” Neta said. [Click here for full article…]

Indonesia registers robust trade surplus

Employees cast ingots from molten tin at the PT Timah processing facility in Mentok, Indonesia. The country posted a robust trade surplus in November, data showed yesterday, in a sign of recovery in Southeast Asia’s biggest nation that was plunged into economic turmoil in 2013.

Gulf Times – Indonesia posted a robust trade surplus in November, data showed yesterday, in a sign of recovery in Southeast Asia’s biggest nation that was plunged into economic turmoil last year.

Jakarta will welcome the news as it battles a deep current account deficit and poor trade performance, soaring inflation and a slump in the rupiah’s value.

The November trade surplus of $776.8mn, up from October’s modest $24.3mn surplus, is the country’s highest since April 2012, and marks a major upswing since a record deficit of $657.2mn in September.

Central Statistics Agency chief Suryamin, who goes by one name, said the recovery came thanks to an improvement in countries buying Indonesian exports, while the weak rupiah also made goods cheaper abroad.  But the overall trade balance for January to November 2013 is still in a substantial deficit of $5.6bn.

Manufacturing also improved, according to HSBC’s purchasing managers’ index, which rose to 50.9 in December from 50.3 in November, showing a rise in domestic demand. A reading above 50 indicates expansion.

Prices in 2013 rose 8.38% on-year in December, up slightly from 8.37% in November.

But inflation was almost double the 2012 rate of 4.30% and well above the central bank’s usual target range of 3.50-5.50%. [Click here for full article…]

Fareed Zakaria: Indonesia Plays Greater Role in Islamic Issues

Temp.co – Fareed Zakaria came from a multicultural environment. Born in Mumbai, India in 1964, he grew up in the middle of a Muslim intellectual family. His father was a politician and an Islamic scholar, while his mother was editor of the Sunday Times of India newspaper. He left for the US to get his BA in history from Yale and later, a PhD in international relations from Harvard University. He remained in the US and became an American citizen.

In 2000, Zakaria worked for Newsweek as a regular columnist and international editor for 10 years. He wrote about globalization, the situation in developing countries, the Middle East and the role of the US in the world.

In the US, Zakaria, is known as a mediator between Islam and the West. According to some media, however, he is not a religious man. In fact, he is reluctant to be called a commentator of the Islamic world.

Last month, Tempo reporter Sadika Hamid interviewed him in Bali, in between sessions of the World Culture Forum. Excerpts:

Some say Islam produces violence or jihad.

That is too simplistic. People look at Islam and think that it must be a violent religion. But Indonesia is a very good example. Most people, when they think of Islam, really think of a small number of Arab countries. It is very difficult for them to understand that the whole Arab world is only 290 million people out of 1.6 billion Muslims. The first Arab country is number six on the list of Muslim countries. Meanwhile, Indonesia has about 220 million Muslims, India around 150 million, Bangladesh and Pakistan have very large Muslim populations. Islam in these countries, particularly in Indonesia, is peaceful and harmonious. It encourages pluralism, recognizes and respects other religions. So what I come to live with is the thought that culture is the thing you can change, you can mold, you can adapt, in a way that it enriches growth. It is particularly important in non-Western countries because they are trying to find a way to modernize and to accept those elements of Westernization such as science and modernity but they do not want to lose their soul.

[Click here for full interview…]

Gerindra, Hanura receive largest campaign donations

Staff members of the General Elections Commission (KPU) receive election-campaign funding reports from political parties at the KPU’s headquarters in Jakarta on Friday, which was the last day to submit their returns to the KPU. JP/Jerry Adiguna

Jakarta Post – The Great Indonesia Movement (Gerindra) Party and People’s Conscience (Hanura) Party appear to have bested the country’s major political parties in terms of financial support.

The General Elections Commission (KPU) said all political parties taking part in the 2014 elections had submitted their bank account details and initial campaign fund reports on Friday.

“We will publish details of the reports three days after the deadline on the KPU’s website,” the KPU’s Ferry Kurnia Rizkiyansyah said on Friday night.

Ferry said the reports submitted by political parties included details of the sources of campaign funds.

“In March 2014, political parties will submit reports again on how they have used or spent their campaign budgets,” he said.

According to information collected from political parties, Gerindra reported the highest campaign funds with Rp 144 billion (US$11.7 million). The party claimed the total campaign funds were collected from legislative candidates across Indonesia.

“We have yet to receive funds from other sources such as companies and individuals. The total also does not include the party’s own cash [but is purely from legislative candidates],” Gerindra treasurer Thomas Acquinas Muliatna said in Jakarta on Friday.

Hanura, which is backed by media tycoon Hary Tanoesoedibjo, who the party has nominated as its vice presidential candidate, submitted its initial campaign fund report of Rp 135.5 billion, higher than the ruling Democratic Party’s (PD) Rp 135 billion.

Meanwhile, the largest opposition party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), reported initial campaign funds of Rp 130 billion. [Click here for full article…]

SBY braces for election turmoil

Jakarta Post – The recent meetings between President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and presidential hopefuls Lt. Gen. (ret.) Prabowo Subianto and Yusril Ihza Mahendra have caused speculation about possible political turbulence ahead of the 2014 elections.

The President held a closed-door meeting with Prabowo, the Great Indonesia Movement (Gerindra) Party chief patron, before courting Yusril, his former minister and the Crescent Star Party (PBB) chief patron, at the State Palace on Tuesday.

The meetings were held amid speculation that the graft-ridden Constitutional Court (MK), now led by a former PBB lawmaker, will rule in favor of Yusril in his petition against the Presidential Election Law.

Yusril has requested that the legislative and presidential elections be held simultaneously in a bid to scrap the presidential threshold as stipulated by the law, which he claimed had denied him his constitutional rights.

The petition, if granted by the court, could change the political constellation ahead of the polls.

A day before the meetings, the State Administrative Court (PTUN) ruled that the President’s appointment of Patrialis Akbar as Constitutional Court justice was illegal. Patrialis is a former politician from the National Mandate Party (PAN), which is headed by Hatta Rajasa, the father of Yudhoyono’s daughter-in-law, Siti Rubi Aliya Rajasa.

Speaking to reporters after his meeting with Yudhoyono, Prabowo said that they did not discuss a possible coalition between their parties, but the President did tell him that he wanted to “leave the stage” in the right way. [Click here for full article…]

Scholars, intellectuals endorse Prabowo’s bid

The Jakarta Globe – A group of university professors and intellectuals announced on Wednesday its collective endorsement of Gerindra Party presidential candidate and chief patron Prabowo Subianto, giving the retired army general another moral boost ahead of the upcoming presidential election. Former Bandung-based Padjadjaran University rector Yuyun Wirasasmita, who read the group’s endorsement during a gathering […]