Indian utility Tata Power Co Ltd is considering building power plants in Southeast Asia and is looking at mines in Indonesia though rising coal prices is making acquisitions expensive, its managing director said Reuters reported from Mumbai. The company, India's oldest private power producer, is spending more than $6 billion to quadruple domestic capacity to 10,000 MW by 2013 from 2,300 MW.

Merrill Lynch has raised its forecasts for contract prices of coal for power plants and steel mills in 2008, predicting that prices will jump by as much as 200%, after recent supply disruptions resulted in a severe global shortage, Reuters reported Friday (7/3/08).

Indonesia is likely to have a maximum of 150 million tons of coal available for export in each of the next several years due to rising domestic demand, Jeffrey Mulyono, head of the Indonesian Coal Mining Association, said, Reuters reported Tuesday (4/3/08). Mulyono said that Indonesia must secure its own coal demand first.

Construction of the 340-MW Sarulla geothermal power plant in Tapanuli, North Sumatra, will start in 2009, Asia Pulse reported Monday (3/3/08). First phase construction will be for a 110 MW capacity plant, said Hilmi Panigoro, president of PT Medci Energi Internasional, which owns the project jointly with Itochu Corp., Kyushu Electric Power Inc. and Ormat International Inc.

CDMA-based cellular operator PT Mobile-8 Telecom said Wednesday (5/3/08) its net profit last year rose 45.4% supported by stronger sales, Thomson Financial reported. The company posted net profit of Rp50.35 billion for 2007 compared to 34.64 billion a year earlier. Net sales surged 49.9% to Rp882.55 billion on an increase in its subscriber base to 3 million from 1.8 million.

The country's largest retailer, PT Matahari Putra Prima, said Tuesday (4/3/08) its net profit grew 12% in 2007, supported by stronger sales, Thomson Financial reported. Matahari booked net profit of Rp180.19 billion, against Rp160.50 billion in 2006. Sales rose to Rp9.8 trillion from Rp8.5 trillion and operating profit grew to Rp408 billion from Rp401.37 billion. The stronger sales were mainly attributable to Matahari Department Store (MDS) and Matahari Food Business (MFB).

Indofood Agri Resources Ltd (IndoAgri), a major subsidiary of food giant PT Indofood Sukses Makmur, reported a 59% increase in sales to Rp6.5 trillion ($715 million) in 2007 from Rp4.09 trillion in the previous year, Asia Pulse reported Tuesday (4/3/08). The better than expected performance was attributable mainly to larger sales and a leapfrogging increase in the price of crude palm oil, the company said in a report.

State Enterprises Minister Sofyan Djalil said the government will complete the process of forming a holding company for 15 state plantation firms, including PT RNI, a state-owned sugar distribution firm, next month, Asia Pulse reported Thursday (6/3/08). "We hope the process to form the holding company and prepare its initial public offering (IPO) will be completed in April 2008," the minister said.

The country expects higher output of its key agriculture commodities rubber, coffee and cocoa in 2008, an official said on Wednesday (5/3/08), due to good weather and higher prices, which have led to more intensive farming, Reuters reported. Rubber output is expected to increase by 2.7% to 2.84 million tons this year from an estimated 2.76 million tons in 2007, said Ahmad Mangga Barani, Director General of Plantation Crops at the Agriculture Ministry.

US car maker General Motors Corp. (GMC) is set to restart its car manufacturing business in Indonesia using the facility it abandoned earlier, Asia Pulse reported Monday (3/3/08). The world's second largest car maker will produce special models to suit the Indonesian market, Mukita Sutikno, general manager of PT General Motors Autoworld Indonesia (GMAI) said. General Motors built an assembling plant in Bekasi at a cost of $110 million in 1993 but the company stopped operation in March 2005.

A widening gap between Indonesian and US interest rates could help draw capital inflows to the country and strengthen the domestic currency, Bank Indonesia (BI) Senior Deputy Governor Miranda Goeltom said Wednesday (5/3/08), Dow Jones Newswires reported. "There's no problem with hot money coming in, as long as our (domestic) fundamentals are good," Goeltom said. She said more fund inflows would strengthen the rupiah against the dollar, which would help fight imported inflation.

The annual inflation rate inched up in February to the highest level since late 2006 due to higher food prices, while the central bank decided to maintain its benchmark interest rate at 8%, Reuters reported. The consumer price index (CPI) in February rose 7.40% from a year earlier, higher than January's 7.36%, the Central Bureau of Statistics reported on Monday (3/3/08). It marks the strongest annual inflation rate since September 2006, when the CPI had risen 14.55% from a year earlier.

The plantations sector performed well above expectations during 2007, and is expected to continue to boom through this year, according to a senior official of the Department of Agriculture. One major plantations firm, Singapore-listed Indofood Agri Resources Ltd (IndoAgri), reported a 59% increase in sales to Rp6.5 trillion ($715 million) in 2007 from Rp4.09 trillion in 2006.

Tuesday, 11 March, 2008 | 14:51 WIB TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: PT Indosat, Tbk has been considering reducing post-paid tariffs rather than prepaid tariffs. The reason is because the post-paid customer is a more frequent user than prepaid ones. Adita Irawati, head of the public relations division for PT Indosat Tbk said that the post-paid customers are only 5 percent out of the total number of customers.

To attract more foreign direct investment (FDI) from Japan, Indonesia needs to take a good look at what's happening in local markets. The reason is that motives make Japanese investors go overseas have shifted -- from a need for low production costs to an interest in the potential of local markets, a seminar concluded on Tuesday. "Previously, Japanese investors considered low production costs, including the cost of labor and raw materials, the main reason for investing in a country.

The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) expects the government's "one village one product" (OVOP) program to go ahead next year as planned, despite incomplete studies on core potentials and competencies of cited regions.