Britain’s Applied Energy Services (AES) plans to build 20 units of biomass power plants with a total investment of $400 million, Asia Pulse reported Friday (14/12/07). Each unit will have a generating capacity of 10 to 15 MW, president and chief executive officer of AES Paul Hanrahan said. AES will, in cooperation with state-owned electricity company PLN, start constructing a unit in Tababan, Bali, next year, to be operational in 2009, Hanrahan said.

Sales of electronic goods in Indonesia are predicted to reach Rp14.7 trillion ($1.63 billion) in value or an increase of 21% from last year's Rp12 trillion, Antara reported Monday (10/12/07). Secretary general of the Electronic Marketer Club Handojo Soetanto said in the first 10 months of this year sales already reached Rp12.2 trillion, exceeding total sales in the whole of last year. Soetanto said sales have continued to pick up from month to month this year with monthly peak in July.

Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd said it will accelerate the rollout of its mobile network in Indonesia with the assistance of PT Excelcomindo Pratama, XFN-ASIA reported Thursday (13/12/07). It said Indonesian unit Hutchison CP Telecommunications (HCPT) signed a memorandum of understanding with Excelcomindo providing for the sharing of base station towers for up to 12 years.

Marubeni Corp, Japan's fifth-largest trading company, plans to launch five to 10 carbon credit projects in Indonesia next year, reaping 3 million credits by 2012, a company source said on Friday (14/12/07), Reuters reported. Marubeni, jointly with the University of Lampung, plans to capture greenhouse gas methane generated from palm oil and sugar cane plants in South Sumatra for use in power generation, it said.

The government is planning to provide incentives to investors wishing to use environment-friendly technology, raw materials, energy and production process, an investment official said, Asia Pulse reported Tuesday (11/12/07). Chief of the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) Muhammad Lutfi did not reveal the model of incentives but added the incentives are part of the government's effort to share the private sector's responsibility for conserving the environment.

Indonesian consumers last month were more confident about their income prospects over the next six months than they were a month earlier, the results of a Bank Indonesia survey issued Monday (10/12/07) showed, Dow Jones Newswires reported. The central bank's Consumer Confidence Index rose 1.1 points to 101.3 points from October, but was down 0.2 points from a year earlier. "Consumers were also less pessimistic on their job prospects," the central bank said on its web site.