JAKARTA, May 29, 2009 (AsiaPulse via COMTEX) A multi purpose vehicle (MPV) Volkswagen model will be assembled in Indonesia by a local car maker. PT Garuda Mataram Motor (GMM), a subsidiary of the Indomobil Group will use one fifth of its 5,000 car assembling capacity to produce 1,400 cc VW Touran cars in the country. VW Touran will be the first model of VW car to be produced in the country, Indomobil President Gunadi Sindhuwinata said.

NUSA DUA (Reuters) - Carbon credits derived from a fledgling forest conservation scheme for developing nations will struggle to compete with palm oil as an investment, industry advisers and conservationists said on Friday. A U.N.-backed scheme called reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) allows developing countries to raise potentially billions of dollars in carbon credits in exchange for conserving and rehabilitating forests.

The outlook for palm oil prices is “bullish,” underpinned by higher demand in India and China, lower inventories and drought in Argentina hurting global vegetable oil supplies, according to an industry executive. “The price is bullish in the medium term,” Derom Bangun, deputy chairman of the Indonesian Palm Oil Board, told a conference on Friday, citing a target of $800 a metric ton in Rotterdam, which includes costs and insurance.

The government will launch electronic trading of crude palm oil on the Jakarta Futures Exchange on June 28, with an aim to become the world’s global reference price for CPO and its derivatives. The new market, envisioned as the first step to include futures trading and other indexes, will use the Indonesian price as the benchmark, Bayu Krisnamurthi, the deputy minister of agriculture and fisheries at the Coordinating Ministry for the Economy, said on Friday in Jakarta.

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta:The government has called on private companies to invest in building infrastructure for gas in the cities. The government will initiate with the basic infrastructure. “We hope that private companies will join later,” said Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro yesterday. Purnomo said that the government will use the state budget to build such facilities. He admitted, however, that the government’s budget was limited.

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta:The government has concluded that efforts to prevent investments from plummeting and to put export-imports back to the level they were previously in, are the biggest challenges in maintaining positives trend in economic growth.