As is widely known, especially to those who have visited certain beaches in Bali, Indonesia needs to combat water pollution, and specifically plastic waste. While local authorities on Bali announced earlier this week to enact a ban on single-use plastics, such as shopping bags, styrofoam food packets and straws (while Jakarta may follow suit), Indonesia's Industry Ministry expressed it opposes an earlier plan to impose an excise tax on plastic bags.

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While the economy of Indonesia can be labelled “healthy” in 2018 as the country’s slow process of accelerating economic growth continued amid very challenging external conditions (albeit it needs waiting for the Q4 GDP growth data  to confirm this statement), not everything went rosy for Southeast Asia’s largest economy in 2018. In fact, for Indonesia, 2018 is characterized by a multitude of devastating and fatal disasters.

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Concern about Indonesia's Q4-2018 current account deficit as well as the value of the rupiah exchange rate should increase now the country posted a big USD $2.05 billion monthly trade deficit in November 2018. It is the highest monthly trade deficit for Southeast Asia's largest economy since July 2013.

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On Sunday 16 December 2018 Indonesia and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), which consists of non-EU member countries Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland, signed the Indonesia-EFTA Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA). The signing ceremony, which was held in Indonesia’s capital city of Jakarta, effectively ends nearly eight years of negotiations between both sides.

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