Candy and biscuits industries have increased production by 15% to meet demands from the Asian and European markets which had shifted from China due to dairy products tainted with melamine, Antara reported on Tuesday. "We still can’t confirm the exact number, but one or two companies have reported a 10-15% increase in production," said the head of the Regulations Division of the Indonesian Food and Beverages Producers Association, Franky Sibarani.

Domestic cement consumption in October rose 24.3% to 3.11 million tons, industry data distributed by PT Semen Gresik showed on Thursday, Reuters reported. State-owned Semen Gresik, the country's largest cement maker, said its total sales in October, including exports, rose 8% to 1.45 million tons.

Indonesia's palm oil output in 2008 is likely to rise by 2.0 million tons from 2007 to 19.33 million, increasing the country's exports and stocks, Hamburg-based oilseeds analyst Oil World forecast on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Indonesian palm oil exports are likely to rise to 14.55 million tons in 2008, up from 12.65 million tons in 2007, it estimates.

Bank Indonesia (BI) on Friday reiterated that it has no plan to resort to capital controls following its announcement limiting purchases of foreign currencies without underlying transactions, Dow Jones reported. "We are still committed to an open capital-account regime," BI Governor Boediono told a press conference. Boediono said the central bank will continue to be in the market to reduce exchange rate volatility.

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati says Indonesia's economic growth may fall to as low as 5% next year, according to Bloomberg News. She also warned that Indonesia was at risk from global trends but hoped to stay out of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) emergency package. “It will be very, very challenging for us to maintain growth under the current circumstances,” Indrawati told Bloomberg in an interview in Sao Paolo.

Panca Nugraha, The Jakarta Post, Mataram For many years investors have been holding land use permits on 18,600 hectares of land on Lombok and Sumbawa Islands in West Nusa Tenggara without developing the property. The provincial chapter National Land Agency (BPN) had issued land use permits to 139 investors between 1993 and 1998. “Based on identifications we conducted from 2006 to 2008, we found that 18,600 ha of land has not been utilized.

Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono on Tuesday defended Indonesia’s drive to expand oil palm plantations, despite a demand by environmentalists for a moratorium on deforestation. Speaking in his keynote address at the opening of the sixth annual meeting of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Nusa Dua, Bali, Apriyantono said any moratorium, including that recently called for by Greenpeace, was beyond the control of the Indonesian government.

Originally Posted By: biznews In order to accelerate the process, NTB administration has asked the central government to immediately issue a regulation on licensing to follow up on Law no. 25/2007 on Investments. the answer to licensing obstacles is more licensing?!

Tuesday, 18 November, 2008 | 18:27 WIB TEMPO Interactive, Mataram:West Nusa Tenggara (NTB)Investments Agency's Promotion chief, Manggaukang Rabah, said not many investors have been attracted to his area because of licensing obstacles. For the last five years, only five foreign and five local investors have started ventures in the area, he said. "The difficulty in getting licenses is one major reason why investments are low in the provinces," Manggaukang said yesterday.

Indonesia is one of the largest producers of mineral resources in the world. In tin, it comes in second after China, in coal it is third after Australia and South Africa, and the list goes on. Minerals and related products account for 19 percent of the county’s total exports.

Indonesia, which holds the world’s single-biggest gold deposit and second-largest copper reserves, may ban exports of all ores in five years, forcing companies to sell processed products that fetch higher profits. The House of Representatives may pass a bill this year or next endorsing the ban, said Bambang Setiawan, director general of coal and mineral resources at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, on Tuesday. The bill will become law after being signed by the president.

Two local poultry producers, PT Charoen Pokhpand Indonesia Tbk and PT Japfa Comfeed Indonesia Tbk, posted strong net profits in the first nine months of the year on the back of robust sales and higher prices for feed. Charoen Pokphand, the country’s largest animal feed and processed poultry producer, said it booked net profit of Rp 401.39 billion ($34.1 million) in the nine months ended in September, a 129.59 percent rise year on year.

Companies in Batam, Riau Islands Province, are protesting an electricity rate increase that one industry official says will cause 100,000 layoffs next year. Abdullah Gosse, the deputy chairman of investment and trade at the provincial chamber of commerce, said on Tuesday that the increase was affecting more than 50 percent of all companies in Riau Islands and would likely curb new investment in the region, which is heavily dependent on the industrial sector.