Dili – Fledgling nation East Timor is making good progress in rebuilding its shattered infrastructure, cutting its budget deficit and making laws to stimulate its moribund economy, inte

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Bill Guerin, Jakarta – The Asian Development Bank has predicted that Indonesia's economy will grow by only 4.5 percent in 2004 and 2005, and warned that foreign direct investment (FDI)

Dadan Wijaksana, Jakarta – As the central bank moved to tighten the rules on foreign exchange transactions to minimize speculation on the rupiah, the local unit slumped on Friday to a f

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Tony Hotland, Jakarta – The Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) has concluded that the dissolved Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) performed its duty of restructuring the majority of t

Dadan Wijaksana, Jakarta – The central bank announced on Wednesday a decline in the banking sector's non-performing loans (NPLs) in March, but warned of a rise in months to come.

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The country's exports increased by 3.43 percent in March to US$5.07 billion from $4.90 billion in February, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) reported on Tuesday.

Jakarta – Indonesia's annualised inflation rate rose to 5.92 percent in April due to higher food prices compared to 5.11 percent in March, the Central Bureau of Statistics said Tuesday.

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – A sense of deja vu surrounded the astonishing news that an Indonesian court has once more declared a major foreign enterprise bankrupt, despite its healthy financ

Dili – Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri launched a public debate Friday on proposed legislation to facilitate and promote private investment by East Timorese entrepreneurs.

Jakarta – Indonesia's top economics minister said on Tuesday that a controversial bankruptcy ruling against the local unit of Britain's Prudential Life insurance company will hurt forei

Robert Go, Jakarta – The two generals who will run in July's presidential election both have strong leadership skills, but the question is – are they both good for business in Indonesia

Jakarta – Indonesia's consumption-driven economy is expected to grow faster than expected this year but it still lags behind the rest of Asia in exports and investment, the World Bank s

Jakarta – Several donor countries and institutions agreed on Monday to hold routine meeting discussing the improvement of Indonesia's investment climate.

Dadan Wijaksana, Jakarta – The recent presidential decree which centralizes the issuance of permits for investment under the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) reflects not only a lac

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Jakarta – The liquidation of Bank Dagang Bali (BDB) and Bank Asiatic, caused in part by a number of lending irregularities, point to the fact that the painful and costly efforts to rest

Urip Hudiono, Jakarta – The move by Bank Indonesia (BI) to close two small banks last week could trigger nervous depositors to shift their funds from smaller to larger banks, experts sa

Jakarta – The economy grew at a snappy 4.8 percent in the first quarter of this year, driven mainly by strong consumer spending, according to Bank Indonesia Governor Burhanuddin Abdulla

Brad Howarth – The newest nation is struggling to its feet, but little will happen without foreign investment.

Jakarta – Approved foreign direct investment in Indonesia fell 66 percent in the January-February period to US$805.4 million from $2.4 billion a year earlier, Bisnis Indonesia reports.

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – Though now defunct, the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) remains prominent in the current two-month changeover period to a new way of managing debt res

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – The man behind the first efforts to privatize Indonesia's state-owned enterprises, and a staunch critic of the slow pace of the program, has been brought back int

As long-term readers of this column will have realised, Pierpont is unfashionable. He is white, Anglo-Saxon, Anglican, heterosexual, married and monarchist.

Dadan Wijaksana, Jakarta – Banking reform in the country is still far from complete despite the closure of the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA), according to a new survey.

Jakarta – The central bank, Bank Indonesia (BI), has predicted that the country's economy will, in the first quarter of the year, grow by 4.2 percent to 4.7 percent on the back of low i

David Fullbrook, Jakarta – Unnoticed by most, a quiet revolution took place in Indonesia in 1999. Its consequences were plunging air fares and dozens of new airlines.

Dadan Wijaksana, Jakarta – Experts warned the central bank against seeking an instant solution to the slow growth in bank loans to the corporate sector, as aggressive lending without pr

Fitri Wulandari, Jakarta – After being considered a pariah nation for years by power investors, Indonesia has started to regain investor confidence, largely due to the successful resolu

Dadan Wijaksana, Jakarta – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Friday that the government had succeeded in retaining market confidence three months after the expiration of the

Gary LaMoshi, Denpasar – President Megawati Sukarnoputri herself closed the book on the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency last Friday, thanking IBRA officials for their work.

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – The collapse of the rupiah in 1998 left Indonesian telecommunication companies barely able to pay their dollar-denominated debts, let alone fund new investment.

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Fitri Wulandari, Jakarta – The consumer price index (CPI) fell 0.02 percent in February from the previous month as the rice harvest and a stronger rupiah resulted in lower prices for fo

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro said the government would increase security at all vital projects and assets across the countr

Robert Go, Jakarta – The Indonesian public received a huge shock yesterday when restructuring agency Ibra closed its books for good and handed over a bill for the economic crisis that b

Jakarta – The Indonesian government plans to sell its controlling stake in 19 state firms this year as part of its continuing privatisation programme, an official said Thursday.

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – Despite the World Bank's recent official criticism of counter-trade policies, last week Indonesian Trade and Industry Minister Rini M Soewandi promised that Jakar

Jakarta – Publicly-listed retailer PT Hero Supermarket said on Friday its net profit had plunged by 93 percent last year, due to the cost of repositioning its business activities amid t

Shawn Donnan, Jakarta – Investors handed a vote of confidence to Indonesia's banking sector on Friday, taking minority stakes in four leading banks off the government's hands for $184 m

The impact of the financial crisis which devastated the economy is still being felt by taxpayers.

Jakarta – Indonesia's exports in 2003 rose by 6.76 percent from a year earlier, partly because of a pick up in global demand and a high international oil price, according to local analy

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Melbourne coffee roaster Wells Trenfield is the second-last person in a global coffee chain.

Bill Guerin, Jakarta – A blueprint just released by the central Bank Indonesia (BI) spells out in some detail how banking-sector reforms will be implemented over the next 10 years.

Jakarta – Plans to provide Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency officials with legal immunity once it is closed have been fiercely criticized, as it violates the basic principle of equa