Luhut Pandjaitan: May God Be Happy, Vaccinations Will Begin In Late 2020

Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan. (Photo: Kemenko Marves)

JAKARTA - The Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said that if all the Sinovac vaccine testing process goes according to plan, the COVID-19 vaccination process could begin at the end of this year.

"Last week we received 1.2 million doses of vaccine and currently BPOM is conducting a testing and evaluation process for the vaccine candidate. We will wait until the process is complete. When BPOM approves and releases emergency use permits, we will immediately start a vaccination program. "he said, at the 8th US-Indonesia Investment Summit, Friday, 11 December.

As is known, for the initial stage of vaccination, the government will target health workers and other frontline personnel in the 8 provinces with the most cases of COVID-19 first. After that, in early 2021, the vaccination process could slowly be spread throughout Indonesia.

"If everything goes according to plan, hopefully God will bless us, we will start vaccination at the end of 2020 and will be followed by large-scale vaccinations throughout the country in 2021," he explained.

In the same forum, Luhut also showed his achievements as the head of handling COVID-19 in eight provinces with the largest cases of COVID-19. The provinces are DKI Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, East Java, Bali, North Sumatra, South Sulawesi and South Kalimantan.

Luhut stated that the progress of handling the pandemic in the eight provinces had reached a good direction.

"In the last three months, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has assigned me to head the COVID-19 response team in eight provinces that lead the number of COVID-19 cases in Indonesia. Previously, when I was in that position, these eight provinces had accumulated 78 percent of the total national cases. Currently the eight provinces only contribute 63 percent, "he explained.

After vaccination, said Luhut, Indonesia's economy will quickly return to positive growth, even though it had fallen into a recession.

"I am very optimistic that starting next year the Indonesian economy will continue to grow positively," he said.

Apart from the presence of the COVID-19 vaccine, Indonesia's economic growth can quickly recover thanks to policy reforms from the creation of the Omnibus Law on Work Creation.

"Indonesia will implement regulatory reforms and Indonesia has now enacted a Job Creation Law which can historically improve Indonesia as an investment destination because this Omnibus Law can simplify and synchronize more than 8,000 existing regulations from around 500 local governments and which will side with MSMEs," he explained.