Day: October 31, 2022

Indonesia’s window for escaping the middle-income trap will remain open only until 2035, a member of the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs’ assistance team informed at an online event on Monday.

This is because the advantages from the demographic bonus or the productive age population in Indonesia will only last until 2035, Raden Pardede explained at the ‘Regsosek Talk: Younger Generation Builds the Nation’ event.

Therefore, he urged all parties to maximize the demographic bonus opportunity within the remaining years.

“If we cannot escape from the middle-income trap within the next 12–14 years, then we will truly lose the opportunity. We should utilize it,” Pardede stressed.

He outlined several efforts that Indonesia can make to maximize the demographic bonus, which have also been successfully carried out by several East Asian countries, such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China.

The first effort involves creating productive and quality jobs through industrialization and servicification, wherein industry and service quality are matched by the development of other creative industries such as fashion, arts, and cosmetics.

“There should be a combination of industrialization with creative industry development. If we look at countries that escape the middle-income trap, they always have that combination,” Pardede said.

Second, Indonesia’s annual economic growth must reach seven to eight percent year on year (yoy), meaning its productivity must increase up to three times.

The third effort concerns improving the quality of human resources, reforming the education sector to make it more egalitarian, focusing on a production-oriented education system instead of fulfilling basic education, and improving the health system.

The fourth relates to the family planning program to control the population size to reduce the mortality rate and improve the population age structure.

“We do not have many opportunities until 2035, if we go beyond that, it will be very difficult,” he said.

“This is what Brazil and Thailand experience, who possibly will not escape the middle-income trap,” he added.

Source: Antara News

Vice President Ma’ruf Amin met with the Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to Indonesia, Abdulla Salem Obaid Aldhaheri, on Monday to discuss bilateral cooperation in various sectors.

The Vice President expressed the hope that earlier agreements, such as the one inked in the education sector between Yogyakarta’s Nahdlatul Ulama University and Emirati’s Mohammed Bin Zayed University for Humanities, would be followed up promptly.

“I welcome and support the bilateral cooperation to establish the school for future studies, and I hope this cooperation would be realized soon,” he said, according to a statement released on Monday.

During the meeting, which took place at the Vice Presidential Office here on Monday, he urged the UAE to collaborate with Indonesia in the Islamic economic and finance sector as well as with Indonesian educational institutions.

“Indonesia wants greater cooperation in the (marketing) of main products in the fashion, pharmacy, tourism, and halal food and drinks sectors. Indonesia also wants to designate the United Arab Emirates as Indonesia’s export hub to Middle Eastern countries,” Amin informed.

He lauded UAE’s willingness to invest in the new capital’s development and the cyber and intelligence sector.

Meanwhile, Ambassador Aldhaheri informed the Vice President that his side has engaged in cooperation with an educational institution based in Surakarta, Central Java.

“We want to inform you that we have inked a partnership with an educational institution focusing on Islamic philosophy in Surakarta, and we hope cooperation in the sector could be enhanced more,” he said.

While welcoming Amin’s invitation to bolster bilateral cooperation in the Islamic economic and finance sector, he expressed the hope that the UAE would cooperate in more sectors, including industry.

Source: Antara News

Technology and research results have an important role in developing the halal industry sector in the country, acting deputy for research and innovation utilization at the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), R. Hendrian, has said.

In the State of the Global Islamic Economy (SGIE) Report in 2022, Indonesia has ranked second in the world as a user of halal products, he noted.

However, Indonesia’s halal product exports account for only 3.8 percent of the world’s halal market.

“This inequality requires technology and innovation encouragement to make it easier for business actors to produce competitive local halal products,” Hendrian said in a statement received by ANTARA in Jakarta on Monday.

Public awareness of halal products has continued to grow globally with the products even becoming a lifestyle choice, he said adding, Indonesia has been no exception as the country with the largest Muslim population in the world.

“The high demand for halal products encouraged the development of the halal industry, which later developed into a new perspective in business development,” Hendrian said.

Therefore, BRIN has produced various research and innovation results to support the halal industry, especially in applied research that can be utilized by business actors and the public, for example, food packaging methods, halal detection tools for several types of foods, and alcohol detection tools.

BRIN has also invited technology producers to collaborate with business actors for developing the national halal industry sector.

Head of the Food Technology and Process Research Center at BRIN, Satriyo Krido Wahono, said that halal research is still being carried out at BRIN with a number of focuses, such as material detection and innovation in the development of substitute materials.

“When the (material) is still raw, there has been detection research and there is the Indonesian National Standard (SNI). The gold standard analysis is already there. But when it has been processed, it has undergone structural changes, there are difficulties to detect. This is a concern to be developed further,” he said.

The future target for halal research is to enable fast detection but zero tolerance for non-halal content, he added.

In addition, BRIN is focusing on research on the substitution of halal materials or imported materials.

According to Wahono, technological innovation is needed to replace imported materials, which are currently dominating the market with local products remaining unexplored, for instance, maritime products.

Source: Antara News

The Coordinating Ministry for Human Development and Culture is urging the community, especially older adults, to implement an active lifestyle to prevent osteoporosis.

“The community, especially older adults, must be active and exercise regularly to prevent osteoporosis,” the ministry’s deputy for the coordination of health quality improvement and population development, Agus Suprapto, said when contacted on Monday.

He explained that optimal nutritional fulfillment, starting from calcium, Vitamin D, to phosphorus intake, is needed for people to have strong bones.

“It must be fulfilled well in accordance with daily needs. This is essential to maintain bone health and stimulate the growth of new cells,” he said.

Besides following a balanced diet, the community has also been asked to exercise regularly.

“The body not only requires adequate and well-absorbed nutrients but also needs to be trained with movement or exercise to make muscles and bones stay strong and fit,” he said.

According to Suprapto, osteoporosis prevention efforts must be made early as people’s lifestyle while they are young will affect their health when they are older.

Therefore, the Coordinating Ministry for Human Development and Culture is actively promoting the importance of preventing osteoporosis in the community.

He informed that the government has continued to intensify the Germas (Community Movement) campaign in accordance with Presidential Instruction Number 1 of 2017 concerning the Healthy Living Community Movement in order to encourage people to prioritize a promotive and preventive health paradigm.

The movement comprises seven steps, namely, performing physical activities, eating fruits and vegetables, refraining from smoking, not consuming alcoholic drinks, conducting regular health checks, maintaining environmental health, and using toilets (ending open defecation).

Earlier, head of the Indonesian Osteoporosis Association (Perosi), Dr. Bagus Putu Putra Suryana, SpPD-KR, had noted that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increase in the number of people with osteoporosis.

“Patients with fractures and osteoporosis have increased after this two-year pandemic,” he noted.

The increase occurred because, during the pandemic, people’s mobility reduced, and people tended to eat without control and did not take care of their bone health.

Source: Antara News