The adoption of a free trade zone (FTZ) on Batam has not made doing business on the island any easier or simpler, but has instead led to more bureaucracy and some confusion for local businesses. Forwarding service firm PT Esqarada president director Daniel Burhanuddin said Wednesday that the business community is now considering asking the government to revoke the FTZ status and return the island's status to a bonded zone.

The disputes between government and oil contractors over cost recovery could worsen because of a long delay in the issuance of regulations on new accounting guidelines for expenditure under production-sharing contracts, as required by the 2009 State Budget Law.

Indonesia could harvest about US$15 billion (Rp 150 trillion) of financial incentives per year from carbon trading through avoiding forest emissions, a climate expert said. Climate researcher from the centre for International Forestry Research (Cifor) Daniel Murdiyarso said that the implementation of reducing emission from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) scheme would give double benefits to Indonesia of financial incentives and curbing long standing illegal logging.

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said here on Thursday the current economic recovery was still in an early stage and fragile. "The recovery is still in an early and fragile stage." she said at a meeting with House Commission XI. She said the global financial crisis had made the country`s economy to slow down. "Its hardest impact was felt from September to the end of 2008. From January to March 2009 its impact was still felt a little.