JAKARTA: An Indonesian ministry will introduce a “Work From Bali” programme for civil servants aimed at helping to revive the island’s battered economy.
The Coordinating Ministry for Maritime and Investment Affairs will start with a pilot project in Nusa Dua, once a prime location for major conferences including the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in 2013, to encourage more meetings and outbound activities on the island.
“We hope that with the arrival of government and state-owned company employees, the gears of Bali’s economy will start moving,” Hermin Esti Setyowati, an assistant deputy at the ministry, said in a statement on Saturday.
Tourism-reliant Bali has been among the country’s hardest-hit provinces as borders remain shut, leaving its hotels and beaches empty. Its gross domestic product shrank 9.9% in the first quarter from a year ago, following a 9.3% contraction for all of 2020.
The island welcomed just 25 foreigners from January to March, compared with 1.1 million in the same period last year.
The local government plans to accelerate its vaccination programme with a goal of reaching herd immunity against Covid-19 by July, which could allow the island to reopen to international tourists.
Phuket, the Thai island seen as Bali’s main rival for tourists in Southeast Asia, is also looking to open to international arrivals on July 1 after carrying out a comprehensive vaccination programme.
Both islands hope to offer quarantine-free entry to fully vaccinated international visitors. But if the spread of Covid in Indonesia and Thailand does not slow, people returning from the two countries might still face quarantine when they arrive home.