Jakarta (VNA) - The total damage and economic lossesfrom forest fires in Indonesia this year has amounted to at least 5.2 billionUSD, equal to 0.5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, the WorldBank said in a report on December 11.

The estimate was based on its assessment in eight affectedprovinces from June to October 2019, though analysts at the multinational banksaid fires had continued to rage through to November.

The forest and land fires, as well as the resulting haze, led tosignificant negative economic impact, estimated at 157 million USD in directdamage to assets and 5 billion in losses from affected economic activities, theWB wrote in the report.

Over 900,000 people reported respiratory illnesses, 12 nationalairports halted operations, and hundreds of schools in Indonesia, Malaysia andSingapore had to temporarily close due to the fires.

More than 942,000 hectares of forests and lands were burned thisyear, the biggest since devastating fires in 2015 when Indonesia saw 2.6million hectares burned, according to official figures.

Officials said the spike was due to El Nino weather patternslengthening the dry season.

The WB also estimated a 0.09 and 0.05 percentage point reductionin Indonesia's economic growth in 2019 and 2020, respectively, due to thefires. Its growth forecast for Indonesia is 5 percent for 2019 and 5.1 percent for2020.

The blazes were manmade and have become a chronic problem annuallysince 1997 because fire is considered the cheapest method to prepare land forcultivation, the bank said.

Because about 44 percent of the areasburned in 2019 were in peatlands, carbon emissions from Indonesia's fires wereestimated to be almost double those from the fires in the Brazilian Amazon thisyear.

The European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast estimated atotal of 720 megatonnes of CO2 emissions came from Indonesian forest fires inJanuary-November this year.

Longer-term effects of repeated fires were not included in thisestimate, the WB said. Repeated haze exposure would reduce health and educationquality and damage the global image of palm oil - an important commodity forIndonesia./.