New year new challenges

Indonesia is entering the new year 2021 full of hope but also full of fear related to the Covid-19 pandemic. Many small and medium businesses have gone bankrupt, thousands of people have lost their jobs. According to the data given by Straits Times newspaper ASEAN regions are witnessing decrease of employment by almost 5% and almost 81 million people lost their jobs. Indonesia is no exception to the rule. With extending periods of lock-downs and semi lock-downs more and more businesses suffer with cash-flow issues and banks are not able to provide them loans as they also struggle with capital inflows. Since the epidemic started more than 10 Indonesian banks have gone bankrupt.

Indonesian government is doing its best to manage the Covid-19 situation but we already know we can't expect things to get better before the end of Ramadan holidays. That's still several months ahead of us. Until this time, things will be changing often and what we can do is just to wait and adapt to the changes as best as we can.

Stay safe in 2021!