AEC Briefs

Indonesia Economic Forum chairman Chairul Tanjung says he is worried the fast-growing e-commerce business may worsen Indonesia’s rich-poor divide as it could increase unemployment.
He told a discussion with 100 economists at the Indonesia Stock Exchange in Jakarta on Tuesday that e-commerce business would grow faster in the country as it entered the era of “Revolution 4.0” as technology could take over most human functions.
“We are now so proud of e-commerce and if later e-commerce has been Indonesia-ed, our small traders will be discharged, as they can no longer compete,” said Chairul, whose CT Corp manages subsidiaries operating in financial services, media, retail, lifestyle, entertainment and plantation businesses.
To solve the problem, he called on all elements in the business and government sectors to make concerted efforts to improve the quality of Indonesia’s human resources, not only in terms of their productivity and efficiency, but also their creativity, innovation and sense of entrepreneurship.
Chairul served as coordinating economic minister in 2014, in the last few months of then president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s administration.
Indonesia’s economy has been rapidly growing, especially in the e-commerce sector, with President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo expecting to turn Indonesia into the biggest digital economy in Southeast Asia by 2020 with a targeted value of US$130 billion. — The Jakarta Post

NPL cap of 3% sought
at Vietnamese banks
The State Bank of Vietnam plans to reduce the ratio of non-performing loans (NPLs) at commercial banks and the Vietnam Asset Management Company (VAMC) to below 3 per cent by 2020 under a government plan.
The government resolution speaks of renovating the growth model and economic restructuring in the 2016-20 period.
The central bank’s policies would target the stabilising of the macro-economy, with inflation kept below 5 per cent.
Accordingly, NPLs at credit institutions would be reduced to below 3 per cent. This would include bad debts sold to the VAMC but not include those of poorly performing banks for which the government approved handling measures separately.
Previously, at a first draft version of the law on supporting credit institution restructuring and handling NPLs, the central bank mentioned the unexpected high bad debt ratio, which surprised the market.
The draft said that the NPL ratio could amount to 8.86 per cent, including bad debts managed by VAMC and debts which potentially turned into non-performing due to a shortage of mechanisms in handling bad debts and mortgaged assets.
With the outstanding loans totalling 5.5 quadrillion dong (Bt8.3 trillion) at the end of 2016, bad debts could amount to 487 trillion dong.
The central bank also planned to reduce lending interest rates to ensure the competitiveness with average lending rates in Asean-4 (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand).
At the government’s meeting early this week, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said that if interest rates were not lowered, rates could not be raised, and adding a one-per cent cut in rates could help save 55 trillion dong in financial costs. — Viet Nam News

Binh Dinh province
attracts 12 projects
Vietnam’s Binh Dinh province has attracted 12 domestic and foreign investment projects to economic zones in the first quarter of the year, said the provincial People’s Committee chairman, Ho Quoc Dung.
Good implementation of land clearance measures and investment promotion were responsible for this development, Dung said.
Notably, there are four projects investing in the Nhon Hoi Economic Zone with capital of 1.3 trillion dong, bringing the total number of projects in the zone to 55 so far, with total investment reaching 36.6 trillion dong.
All industrial zones in the province have e lured 228 projects with total registered capital of 11.1 trillion dong, of which 65 per cent has been disbursed. 
Dung added that the province’s construction and industrial production value in the first three month of the year increased by 8.95 per cent year on year to 2.79 trillion dong. — Viet Nam News