State-owned power firm, PT PLN, on Tuesday (16/1/07) signed 10 power purchase contracts with local companies, which will build small power plants outside Java. The combined electricity PLN will buy from these companies will total 850 MW, PLN director Ali Herman Ibrahim was quoted as saying by Dow Jones Newswires.

State-owned power firm, PT PLN, on Tuesday (16/1/07) signed 10 power purchase contracts with local companies, which will build small power plants outside Java. The combined electricity PLN will buy from these companies will total 850 MW, PLN director Ali Herman Ibrahim was quoted as saying by Dow Jones Newswires.

Sales of new vehicles in Indonesia plunged 40% in 2006, figures from the industry association showed Monday (15/1/07). Auto sellers felt the pinch due to higher interest rates, which were jacked up in 2005 in the wake of a spike in inflationary pressure stemming from dramatic fuel price hikes. The government also slashed subsidies on domestic fuel amid soaring global oil prices, another deterrent for consumers buying cars.

Indonesia's manufacturing sector output is expected to grow a faster 7.9% in 2007, helped by higher consumption and lower interest rates, an Industry Department official said. The government estimated manufacturing probably grew 5% in 2006, less than a 6% official forecast made at the start of last year, partly due to weak domestic demand and high interest rates. Manufacturing growth was 4.6% in 2005. "We expect the manufacturing industry to grow around 7.9% this year.

Corporate expenditure on advertising in 2006 rose 17% to Rp30 trillion, Nielsen Media Research said. It noted that TV absorbed Rp20 trillion, or 67%, of the total spending, with the remainder shared by newspapers, magazines, radio and online media, XFN-Asia reported on Thursday (18/1/07). Ananto Praktikno, executive director of Nielsen Media Research Indonesia, said he expects corporate spending on advertising to increase this year in line with the improving economy.

Flag carrier PT Garuda Indonesia posted a narrower net loss last year, due to reduced operating costs and improved efficiency, its president director, Emirsyah Satar, said on Wednesday (17/1/07). Garuda posted a net loss of Rp298.3 billion ($32.88 million) last year, compared to Rp688.5 billion a year earlier, Satar said, adding that the number of Garuda's routes that had become profitable had increased substantially.

The 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) are preparing a plan to facilitate the flow of goods in the region to boost regional trade. The facility, called the Green Line, will reduce operating costs and save more time in shipping goods, Asean secretary general Ong Keng Yong said Wednesday (17/1/07). He said the shipment of goods in the region often undergo examinations in a number of posts in border areas before reaching the destination country.

Singapore’s PDC Corp expects to invest about $50 million to set up corn and coffee plantations in North Sumatra. The investment will be disbursed over 18 months, beginning the second quarter of the current financial year. The investment will be funded by bank borrowings, estimated by PDC International director Desmond Ng to be 70% of the total amount, and the rest through equity fund-raising, Business Times reported on Tuesday (16/1/07).

Eight major car manufacturers from Japan, Europe and China have made Indonesia their production base, an official said. Toyota, Daihatsu, Honda, Suzuki, Nissan, Mitsubishi of Japan, BMW of Europe and Cherry of China have made Indonesia a production base, Director General for Transport Equipment and Information Technology, Budi Dharmadi, said, according to Antara. Dharmadi said the government hopes to persuade other carmakers to make the country their production base.

The government this year aims to attract $125 million in fresh investments in the footwear industry and increase shoe exports by 15% to $1.7 billion. "We are confident about the targets as the European Union continues to impose an anti-dumping import duty on Chinese products," the Industry Department’s director for multifarious industries, Nugraha Sukmawidjaya, said Wednesday (17/1/07).

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told the opening of a natural gas seminar on Tuesday (16/1/07) that the government will further ease investment procedures and offer more incentives to attract investment in the sector. The government was prepared to offer tax and production sharing incentives to help meet rising domestic demand at home and existing export commitments, The Jakarta Post reported.

The industry hit hardest by the twin fuel price hikes of 2005 was perhaps the automotive industry, more precisely, the new-car market. No surprises there, considering cars are a family's second-largest "investment" and unlike the home, they run on fuel. The recovery that's now taking place in the car market has switched dramatically in favor of used cars, not new cars.

Indonesia's economy would be poised for higher economic growth this year were it not for inability of the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to deliver, according to a staunch critic of the government. Rizal Ramli, chief economics minister under president Abdurrahman Wahid, says he expects the economy to grow marginally closer to 6 percent in 2007 from 5.5 or 5.6 percent in 2006.

Foreign investors have began eyeing Indonesia as an investment destination besides China, India and Vietnam thanks to its increasingly stable economic and political conditions, Bank Indonesia (BI) Governor Burhanuddin Abdullah said. "I think that the investment climate, political stability and macro economic conditions are getting better," he said on Friday.