Credits disbursed by the banking sector rose to an estimated Rp20 trillion ($2.2 billion) in August from Rp11.4 trillion in the previous month, Bank Indonesia spokesman Budi Mulya said, according to Asia Pulse. The strong growth provided greater optimism that the credit growth target of 22% this year would be achieved, Mulya said. Investment credits accounted for the largest portion of 12.3% followed by consumption credit at 11.6% and working capital credit at 8.4%.

PT Global Mediacom, Indonesia's largest media company, said it sold a stake in PT Plaza Indonesia Realty, raising Rp552 billion ($59 million). Global Mediacom sold 649.3 million Plaza Indonesia shares at Rp850 each in a series of transactions from August 22 to 24, it said in a statement to the Jakarta Stock Exchange. Global Mediacom had 650.11 million shares, or an 18.3% stake, in the shopping center and hotel operator as of June 30, according to Plaza Indonesia's first-half financial report.

The country’s third largest mobile phone company, PT Excelcomindo Pratama, will offer price discounts in Jakarta and Bali to win subscribers. Excelcom plans to charge rates as low as Rp60 a minute in the two cities starting this month, president director Hasnul Suhaimi said in a recent interview in Singapore, according to Bloomberg News. Suhaimi, formerly head of PT Indosat, the country’s second largest mobile operator, joined Excelcom in September 2006 to help boost its 14% market share.

The government has set a target of earmarking a total of 30 million hectares of land in the country as permanent farmland, which cannot be converted for other purposes, Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono said. "To date, Indonesia only has about 7.4 million hectares of farmland. We hope we can have a total of 30 million hectares of permanent farmland in the future," he said on Monday (3/9/07), according to Antara.

The government is planning steps to ensure that domestic cooking oil prices ease by 10% to 15% in the next few weeks, a senior government official said on Wednesday (5/9/07). "We cannot afford cooking oil prices to remain high as our main festival season of Ramadhan and Idul Fitri is approaching," Djoko Said Damardjati, Director General of Processing and Marketing at the Agriculture Department, told Reuters on the sidelines of a regional grains conference in Perth.

Japanese electronic company PT Sharp Electronics Indonesia plans to build an assembly plant for liquid crystal display (LCD) television sets in Jakarta early next year. The facility is planned to increase the market share of Sharp LCD especially for 20-, 26- and 32-inch types in the country, company president Fumihiro Iries, said, according to Antara.

A unit of German drug and chemicals group Bayer AG aims to make an expanded plant in Indonesia an Asia-Pacific production base for consumer care products. Hans-Josef Schill, president director of PT Bayer Indonesia, was quoted as saying by The Jakarta Post on Friday (7/9/07) that the expansion of the plant would allow the firm to gradually lift its annual production capacity to 2,000 tons of over-the-counter medication from 700 tons currently.

India's leading rapeseed oil manufacturer, KS Oils Ltd, plans to buy palm plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia to meet growing edible oil demand in India, its managing director said Thursday (6/9/07). "We have chalked out a plan to buy around 8,000 to 12,000 hectares of palm plantations in both these countries and have already finalized a deal in Malaysia," Sanjay Agarwal told Dow Jones Newswires. The company has earmarked $36.7 million to purchase palm plantations in the two countries.

Investment approvals have returned to those before the economic crisis of 1998, the head of the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM), M. Lutfi, was quoted as saying by Dow Jones Newswires. Lutfi said he expects total investment commitments by both foreign and local investors to reach $55 billion by the end of the year.

Foreign capital has begun to return to domestic financial instruments after large capital outflows from Bank Indonesia promissory notes (SBI) and state bonds as a result of global financial turmoil, a Bank Indonesia (BI) official said, according to Antara.

Actual domestic and foreign direct investments (FDI) in Indonesia during the first eight months of the year rose 123% from a year earlier to $11.70 billion, the National Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) said Friday. Actual FDI in the January to August period rose 106.9% from last year to $8.13 billion, while domestic investment surged 171.9% to $3.57 billion, Agence France-Presse reported. Realized investment projects absorbed 203,190 workers, BKPM said.

The US will soon lift its travel warning to Bali as the Ngurah Rai international airport has met international security standards. Chadik Wibowo, aviation security manager of state-owned airport operator PT Angkasa Pura I at Ngurah Rai, told The Jakarta Post on Saturday (8/9/07) the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agency had informed him the US government would soon lift the travel warning to Bali.

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesian state-owned power company PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) said that a consortium led by Shanghai Electric Group will begin construction Monday of a coal-fired power plant worth about 800 million US dollars in the west Java town of Pelabuhan Ratu. Shanghai Electric's partner for the project is PT Maxima Infrastruktur. The plant will have three power generating units with a capacity of 350 megawatts each.

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesia's consumer confidence improved in August from the previous month with fewer respondents downbeat about employment conditions in the next six months, according to the results of a survey by the central bank released on Tuesday. The consumer confidence index increased to 98.0 in August from 96.3 in July, Bank Indonesia was quoted by Thomson Financial as saying.