Foreign investors are beginning to turn their eyes from the country’s mining and energy industries to health care despite heavy regulation of the sector, according to Standard Chartered Bank. Bala Swaminathan, the bank’s South East and East Asia wholesale banking head, said on Tuesday that several regional investors had held talks with Standard Chartered about joint-venture opportunities in health care.

Plummeting demand for computers and slumping industry profits aside, the world’s biggest chipmaker, Intel, says it is committed to expanding its presence in Indonesia. Founded in 1968 and based in Santa Clara, California, Intel saw its first-quarter net profit tumble to $647 million from $1.4 billion in the year-earlier period, although the company claims that computer sales have bottomed out and are now recovering. For /full year 2008, Intel posted net income of $5.3 billion.

The Finance Ministry’s Directorate General of Taxation plans to launch a worldwide tender between September and early 2010 for a $145 million project to revamp its computerized information system, in line with concerted efforts in recent years to expand the country’s extremely low taxpayer base, a senior government official said on Tuesday.

The Riau government, already good at attracting investment, is moving aggressively to set up the nation's first downstream industrial cluster for the palm oil industry, to start to catch up with Malaysia. The Riau regional government supported by palm oil industry stakeholders held an ambitious meeting Wednesday to generate a consensus on incentives, infrastructure, and support measures needed to develop a downstream industry.