Day: November 29, 2021

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PM: Close Relationship Between Malaysia, Singapore Of Immense Importance To Both Countries

 

SINGAPORE— As close, immediate neighbours the deep relationship between Malaysia and Singapore is of immense importance to both sides, said Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob.

 

“More active multi-level engagements and a much stronger cooperation are certainly the way forward for our two countries,” said Ismail Sabri at a joint press conference with his Singapore counterpart Lee Hsien Loong here Monday.

 

“This is crucial also for our cooperation in undertaking effective and meaningful (economic) recovery efforts so that our countries will come out stronger following the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

 

The Malaysian premier is on an official visit to Singapore at the invitation of Lee.

 

He noted that today both countries marked another significant milestone in their cooperation with the reopening of their borders through the launching of the land Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL-Land).

 

Ismail Sabri had on Monday morning crossed Tambak Johor or the Johor Causeway and was received by the Singapore Prime Minister at the Woodlands Checkpoint.

 

“This in itself is very significant as we have also launched VTL-Air. This is part of the gradual reopening of our borders to facilitate travel between the two countries,” the Malaysian premier said.

 

Ismail Sabri said he had also discussed with his counterpart additional measures that both will undertake with regard to cross-border travels between Malaysia and Singapore.

 

Both of them have agreed to include all categories of travellers for the VTL-Land, subject to the health requirements determined by both countries.

 

They also agreed to expand the VTL-land to include additional bus service routes through the Second Link, trains operated by Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM), and gradually to include personal vehicles such as motorbikes and cars.

 

“We acknowledge that the reopening of borders is important to reactivate cross-border social and economic activities that will benefit the people of both countries,” Ismail Sabri said. “We hope that by doing this, it would provide the opportunity for more people on both sides of the Causeway who have been away from their families due to the COVID-19 pandemic, to be reunited with their loved ones – which we know the people of both Malaysia and Singapore have long awaited for.”

 

Expanding cross-border movement by air to other Malaysian destinations

 

Both of them also discussed the cross-border travel by air between Singapore and destinations in Malaysia like Penang, Langkawi, Kuching, and Kota Kinabalu.

 

“Both of us decided that our officials should start to draw up measures for this purpose,” he said.

 

Ismail Sabri and Lee had a four-eyed meeting at the Istana in the afternoon.

 

During the discussion, Ismail Sabri said they also agreed on the need to resume work on their existing bilateral mechanisms.

 

“This includes the 10th Annual Leaders’ Retreat, which we have not been able to convene during the past two years due to the pandemic,” he added. “Insya Allah, we will have our Leaders’ Retreat in the first quarter of next year and I look forward to coming back to Singapore.”

 

Ismail Sabri revealed that he and Lee also agreed that the work on other mechanisms at the ministerial and official levels should resume as soon as possible.

 

“This is important to ensure that our multi-faceted cooperation and outstanding issues are kept on the right track with a positive momentum going forward. Subsequently, PM Lee and I will discuss the progress of these bilateral mechanisms at our Leaders’ Retreat,” he said.

 

Both leaders also discussed the situation in Myanmar.

 

“We agreed that it is crucial for ASEAN to continue playing a positive and constructive role in facilitating a durable and peaceful solution in the interest of Myanmar and the larger interest of the ASEAN Community.

 

“We share the same view that it is crucial for Myanmar to cooperate in the implementation of the Five-Point Consensus, and the necessity to preserve the credibility and integrity of ASEAN.

 

“We look forward to the return to democracy in Myanmar and the participation of Myanmar at the highest level at future summits,” Ismail Sabri said.

 

 

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

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ADB Approves $125 Million for Water Supply and Sanitation in Uttarakhand, India

MANILA, PHILIPPINES  — The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a $125 million loan to improve access to quality water supply and sanitation services in Uttarakhand, India.

 

The project will construct 136 kilometers (km) of water pipe system to replace defective water networks in South Dehradun. This will ensure reliable and continuous water supply, benefitting an estimated 40,000 people, including 4,000 urban poor and vulnerable groups. Water meters will also be installed in about 5,400 households to support efficient water use and consumption billing.

 

In addition, the project will establish sewage treatment plants in Dehradun, supported by 256 km of enclosed underground sewer networks and 117 km of stormwater drainage networks benefitting an estimated 138,000 residents, including 15,000 urban poor and vulnerable people. A total of 17,410 households in Dehradun will be connected to this sewerage system. Replacing the aging sewage treatment plant with a new one using advanced technology, and trunk sewer rehabilitation in Nainital, the project will ensure resilient and reliable sanitation services to the entire population of about 154,000 people.

 

“Lack of reliable and clean water and sanitation services is a major concern in the fast-growing and rapidly urbanizing state of Uttarakhand,” said ADB Senior Urban Development Specialist for South Asia Na Won Kim. “This project will enhance the water supply and sanitation infrastructure in Dehradun and Nainital to provide reliable and efficient water supply and sanitation services. ADB’s support will help improve the country’s health conditions through innovative and climate-resilient investment and deeper institutional support.”

 

The project incorporates some lessons from earlier ADB-financed projects in Uttarakhand and other states in India. These include, among others, building citywide sanitation to make them cost-effective, wider-reaching, and less water-dependent and engaging the private sector to build the skills of concerned urban local bodies on operation and maintenance systems.

 

The project will introduce a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and geographic information system (GIS) to provide real-time data and information for monitoring. Moreover, for the first time in India’s water and sanitation sectors, the project will introduce four citywide computerized maintenance and management systems to advance operation and maintenance, and asset management of the water supply and sanitation infrastructures and services.

 

ADB will provide a $250,000 technical assistance (TA) grant from its Technical Assistance Special Fund and another $750,000 grant from its Climate Change Fund to further strengthen climate-resilient urban planning and development of the state by carrying out thorough assessment, supporting science-based decision making, developing smart integrated and resilient urban planning tools, and capacity-building activities.

 

ADB is committed to achieving a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific, while sustaining its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty. Established in 1966, it is owned by 68 members—49 from the region.

 

 

Source: Asian Development bank

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Food Inflation and Food and Nutrition Security Situation in Developing Asia During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Families in developing Asia spend up to half their budgets on food, so food price increases have wide negative impact. Since the start of the pandemic in early 2020, food prices have risen consistently due to supply chain disruptions, rising shipping costs and bad weather.   The pandemic, inducing higher food prices and reduced incomes, makes the goal of eradicating hunger even more challenging. The UN Agencies estimate of undernourished population in Asia increased from 361.3 million to 418.0 million between 2019 and 2020, increasing the prevalence of undernourishment from 7.9% to 9.0%. South Asia has the most severe impact, accounting for 89% of the increase in the number of undernourished in Asia (FAO et.al. 2021).

 

Increasing cost of living

Domestic food supply chain disruptions and rising shipping costs driven by COVID-19 related restrictions, currency depreciation and export restrictions imposed by some grain exporters have pushed the domestic food price upwards in many economies in the region. The adverse impacts of climate change, catastrophic weather events, and various pest infestations are also contributing to increasing prices of fruits, vegetables, dairy products, and other basic food items. The spread of infectious diseases among animals (such as the African swine fever) has also affected food production and further disrupting the food supply chain.

 

Figure 1 shows the changes in food inflation from 2019 to 2020 of Asia and the Pacific economies in which nearly all economies with available data showed positive food CPI growth. During this period, food inflation increased in 29 of the 41 reporting economies, of which 17 posted food inflation of 5% or higher. The largest increases in food price inflation were observed mostly in lower-middle income economies such as Pakistan (11.3 percentage points), Sri Lanka (10.6 percentage points), the Kyrgyz Republic (10.3 percentage points), and Bhutan (7.8 percentage points). Trends in nonfood price inflation in 2020 were mixed and ranged from as low as –10.3% to as high as 18.6% by economy.

Increasing unemployment and reduced working hours

In addition to higher food prices, households have also experienced unemployment and loss of work hours during the pandemic. Figure 2 shows the rise of unemployment in 21 of the 23 ADB member economies with available data from 2019 to 2020. Of these, 16 economies saw their unemployment rates climb by at least 10%, while more than one-third saw an increase of 20% or more. The highest increases in unemployment rates were noted in the Philippines (5.2 percentage points); Hong Kong, China (2.9 percentage points); Azerbaijan (2.4 percentage points); Bhutan (2.3 percentage points); and Indonesia (1.8 percentage points). In terms of work hours, overall the region lost an estimated 8% in 2020. Among the subregions, South Asia recorded the highest loss of work hours with 13.6%. This is followed by Central and West Asia with 9.2% and Southeast Asia with 8.4%. The Pacific recorded the smallest change in work hours lost with only 2.4% (ILO 2021; ADB 2021a). Higher unemployment rates and more work hours lost translate into reduced incomes for affected households.

Both high food prices and reduced incomes impact households’ accessibility to healthy and nutritious food and in turn affects prevalence of undernourishment. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, projections on the prevalence of undernourishment indicated that most subregions in Asia and the Pacific show significant progress in reducing undernourishment by 2030 (FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO 2020), albeit at a pace of progress that might be slower than what was observed in earlier decades due to impacts of climate change and other factors (ADB 2019b). Economies from East Asia and Central Asia were likely to eliminate undernourishment by 2030, but some South Asian and Southeast Asian economies need to further accelerate their efforts to achieve the 2030 targets (FAO 2020).

Results from an Asian Development Bank Institute survey, as seen in Figure 4, illustrates that   in select economies where the prevalence of food security and undernourishment were already considerable even before COVID-19 struck, significant proportion of the population had to reduce food consumption to cope with financial difficulties caused by the pandemic.

 

Pandemic exacerbates existing vulnerabilities

The pandemic makes the goal of eradicating hunger even more challenging in several ways, although the full extent of its impact is hard to quantify due to a lack of available data. The pandemic exacerbates the vulnerabilities of people who were already suffering from undernourishment and malnutrition as these increase the chance of getting ill and dying (DIPR 2020). Furthermore, undernourishment of expectant mothers may affect infants’ health while undernourishment of children may also lead to poor learning outcomes.

 

 

Source: Asian Development bank

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ADB and Philippine Government Partnership for Pandemic Healing

In March 2021, ADB provided the Philippine government with a $400 million loan for the Health System Enhancement to Address and Limit COVID-19 (HEAL2) project to help finance the country’s purchases of COVID-19 vaccines. It was the first loan approved and disbursed under ADB’s $9 billion Asia Pacific Vaccine Access Facility.

 

ADB’s support was not limited to securing vaccines. With technical assistance, ADB assisted the government on several fronts. This included helping the Department of Health and the National Task Force on COVID-19 in improving public communications on the vaccines as well as health promotions strategies. ADB also provided vaccine logistics and supply chain experts to assist the government in vaccine supply planning and allocation. Data management experts were recruited to support the implementation of vaccine information management systems.

 

 

 

Source: Asian Development bank

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BSP Eyes Offline Digital Payments to Support Financial Inclusion

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is eyeing offline digital payment solutions to enable transactions without the need for internet connection in an effort to boost financial inclusion in off-grid areas.

Governor Diokno said that while an effective and reliable internet connectivity is a necessary condition for digital finance to flourish, the central bank is also pursuing digital solutions to enable ‘offline payments.’

The BSP is working on this initiative under the Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap (DPTR) which aims to convert 50 percent of the volume of retail payments into digital form and onboard 70 percent of Filipino adults to the formal financial system by 2023. The Governor discussed digital reforms during the Philippine Economic Society’s (PES) virtual conference themed, “Building Back Better: Harnessing Digitalization Towards a Transformed Philippines.”

Representatives from the private and public sectors, members of the academe from local and international institutions, and students across the country attended the three-day virtual conference.

PES is a non-stock and non-profit organization whose primary purpose is to encourage professional relations among economists and seek to improve the standards of economic research and instruction in the Philippines.​

 

Source: Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP)

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Corrections and Clarifications regarding content about COVID-19 Vaccines in a blog post by Cheah Kit Sun

There are false and misleading statements about COVID-19 vaccines contained in a  blog post by Cheah Kit Sun titled  ‘Do Not Participate In A Society that Rejects You’, published on Wednesday, 20 October 2021 on various online locations, which was shared by Goh Meng Seng on Facebook (20 October 2021). It is important to correct these falsehoods, especially given the on-going vaccine booster exercise.

 

In particular, the blog post misleads people into thinking that the COVID vaccines are the most dangerous developed recently as they have caused a substantially higher rate of death and serious injury compared to all other vaccines over the last 10 years.

 

Here are the facts.

 

Fact #1: COVID-19 vaccines approved for use in Singapore are safe. The serious adverse event incidence rate reported by healthcare professionals to HSA is 0.006% of total doses administered.

 

COVID-19 vaccines approved for use in Singapore are safe. They have been assessed to be safe and effective internationally by reputable health and scientific agencies, and in Singapore by both the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) and the Expert Committee on COVID-19 Vaccination (EC19V). As of 31 October 2021, the serious adverse event incidence rate reported by healthcare professionals to HSA is 0.006% of total doses administered. Thus far, no deaths have been attributed to the COVID-19 vaccines. The benefits of receiving COVID-19 vaccines continue to far outweigh the risks of vaccination.

 

Fact #2: The United States’ Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)1 data do not support the claim that COVID-19 vaccines have caused a substantially higher rate of serious injury and death.

 

First, COVID-19 vaccines have been given to a very large proportion of the US population in 2021, while the other vaccines have been given to substantially fewer individuals in any given year. Thus, it is misleading to compare the absolute number of reported adverse events and deaths for COVID-19 and non-COVID vaccines.

Second, there is much higher surveillance and awareness of adverse event reporting for COVID-19 vaccines, compared with other vaccines.

 

Third,  any member of the public may report adverse events and deaths to the VAERS system, regardless whether it is caused by vaccines or other factors. The reports are not required to be verified. They often lack details and sometimes contain errors. No proof is required that the adverse event or death was caused by the vaccine. And adverse events need not be serious; they include mild side effects such as rash/cold/headaches.

 

The post has been written to falsely exaggerate the dangers of COVID-19 vaccines, and to discourage people from taking them. If people believe these falsehoods, there could be serious health consequences for those who then remain unvaccinated. As stated earlier, the evidence so far is that serious adverse events have been reported in only 0.006% of total doses administered.

 

MOH advises the public not to speculate and/or spread misinformation which may cause public alarm, and to refer to credible sources of information instead. Please visit www.moh.gov.sg for the latest information on COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccinations. For vaccine SAE statistics, please refer to HSA and its Safety Updates published monthly.

 

 

Source: Government of Singapore