Indonesia may sign business investment deals worth up to $5 billion during the 5th annual World Islamic Economic Forum scheduled on March 2 and 3 in Jakarta. Tanri Abeng, WIEF co-chairman, said on Friday that the event could produce a host of joint-venture and shareholder agreements between Arab businesses and Indonesian private and state companies across a wide range of sectors, including the telecommunications, infrastructure, transportation, electricity, banking, and oil and gas industries.

With the enactment of the new Mining Law, we may now face the dilemma of Ulysses when he navigated his ship: To sail toward the Scylla cliff to avoid the Charybdis whirlpool. The new Mining Law seems to have better and clearer rules on the permitting of mines and on the financial responsibilities of mine operators. However, the Indonesian Mining Association (IMA) argues, quite correctly, that the law will scare off multinational mining companies.

Denpasar (ANTARA News) - The number of Malaysian tourists visiting the Indonesian tourist resort island of Bali in the January - November 2008 period was recorded at 113,409, a statistics agency official said. "The number of tourists coming from the neighboring country increased by 20,546 or 22.26 percent if compared with that a year earlier which stood at 92,763," Head of the Central Board of Statistics for Bali office, Ida Komang Wisnu, said here on Friday.