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THURSDAY, JULY 9, 2020
Azlan Othman & Izah Azahari
In conjunction with the launch-
ing of Language Month 2020
on July 1, the Language and Lit-
erature Bureau (DBP) launched
three alternative e-payments for
services and marketing mecha-
nism at DBP via Digital Banking,
QuickPay and Swipe Card for Bank
Islam Brunei Darussalam (BIBD)
account holders.
Customers can make direct
payments by choosing one of the
payment alternatives provided.
Among the services provided
by DBP include translation and
review services,
Jawi
writing and
veri ication services, sale of book
publishing licences, magazines
and journals, space rental, library
card registration, tender offer, doc-
ument sales and book, magazines
and journals’ sales.
Thee-paymentimplementation
aims to upgrade the department’s
services and marketing as well as
to support digital and cashless
world initiatives.
Lyna Mohamad
The 36
th
National Day Run 2020 has
been cancelled over public health
fear of the coronavirus outbreak,
according to the event organiser,
the Ministry of Culture, Youth and
Sports (MCYS).
The cancellation was also made
with advice from the Ministry
of Health, MCYS stated in a
press release.
Participants who have not
collected their T-shirts can do at
the National Day Run Secretariat at
Level 6 of the MCYS building from
now until July 22.
James Kon
Brunei
Darussalam
yesterday
marked 62 days without new
COVID19 cases, keeping the na-
tional tally at 141.
Information on the latest situa-
tion of COVID19 in the country was
shared by the Ministry of Health in
a statement yesterday.
Meanwhile, 334 individuals who
arrived in the country after travel-
ling abroad are currently undergo-
ing mandatory self-isolation at the
government monitoring centres.
Some 3,040 individuals have
completed their mandatory self-iso-
lation at the centres since March.
As for the SARSCoV2 virus
testing, 473 samples have been
tested in the past 24 hours bringing
the total number of laboratory tests
conducted since January 2020
to 32,501.
For information visit www.moh.
gov.bnor contact Health Advice
Line 148 or check the BruHealth
app or the
healthinfo.gov.bn.
Azlan Othman
A new updated report from the
APEC Policy Support Unit inds that
the COVID19 pandemic is causing
a deeper contraction to the region’s
economy. The Asia-Paci ic Eco-
nomic Cooperation (APEC) region’s
economic growth is now expected
to decline by 3.7 per cent in 2020,
down from its initial forecast of a 2.7
per cent contraction in April, bring-
ing the total output loss to a stag-
gering USD2.9 trillion.
Member economies of the
APEC, include Australia, Brunei,
Canada, Chile, mainland China,
Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan,
Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand,
MCYS
cancels 36
th
National
Day Run
DBP
adopts
online
payment
Brunei marks 62 days without
new COVID-19 cases
COVID-19 deepens APEC region crisis
The APEC region’s growth declined by 2.2 per cent in the irst quarter of this year due to travel restrictions and
widespread lockdown measures depressed domestic consumption, trade and investment activities.
PHOTO: APEC
restrictions and widespread lock-
down measures that depressed
domestic consumption, trade and
investment activities.
Merchandise trade recorded
a bigger contraction in the irst
quarter from the combined impact
of trade tensions and supply chain
disruptions. “In overall terms, mer-
chandise trade in APEC has signi i-
cantly decreased in both value and
volume this year,” explained APEC
Policy Unit’s researcher Rhea C
Hernando who wrote the updated
report. “The temporary restrictions
imposed on food and medical sup-
plies weakened trade even further
in the irst quarter of the year.”
The region’s value of trade
in goods dropped by 5.8 per
cent for exports and 4.1 per cent
for imports.
Foreign direct investment
shares similar sentiment with in-
lows to the APEC region going
down by 3.1 per cent, while green-
ield investments dropped sharply
by 20.4 per cent in 2019.
In the midst of uncertainties,
the report recommends APEC
economies to take decisive ac-
tions including intensifying ef-
forts towards containment mea-
sures to avoid further waves of
the pandemic, while at the same
time maintaining iscal and mon-
etary stimulus measures to help
alleviate the risk of people falling
into poverty and businesses going
bankrupt.
The report also urged member
economies to invest in digital tech-
nology, including building or boost-
ing technological infrastructure,
equipping workers with digital skills
and modernising business and gov-
ernance processes. This investment
could contribute to making econo-
mies more innovative and dynamic
while expanding access and oppor-
tunities to everyone.
Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Phil-
ippines, Russia, Singapore, South
Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the Unit-
ed States and Vietnam.
These new projections are in
line with the revisions by the In-
ternational Monetary Fund (IMF)
in its recently updated World Eco-
nomic Outlook. Global growth is
projected to fall to -4.9 per cent,
compared to a decline of -3 per
cent estimated earlier by the IMF,
the report stated.
“The protracted duration of the
pandemichascausedacrisisworse
than anticipated impacts on the
global economy, with some econ-
omies recently reporting a second
wave of infections,” said Director
of the APEC Policy Support Unit Dr
Denis Hew.
Dr Hew added that economic
recovery is in the horizon but it is
“highly dependent on the avail-
ability of vaccines and treatments
as well as the effectiveness of
economic policies that are being
implemented by economies to ad-
dress the pandemic”.
The updated report projects an
economic recovery for the region
of 5.7per cent in2021, compared to
the earlier estimate of 6.3 per cent.
This economic rebound hinges
on whether the pandemic can be
contained over the second half of
this year.
The APEC region’s growth de-
clined by 2.2 per cent in the irst
quarter of this year due to travel