Jakarta-based property consultancy PT Procon Indah said the office rental property market showed signs of improvement in the second quarter, while the retail property market, which usually spearheads recovery in the property sector after a downturn, was suffering from oversupply. “Supported by increased confidence in the economy, the Jakarta office market has shown some positive signs during the second quarter of this year,” Utami Prastiana, Procon’s head of research, said on Tuesday.

The nation’s small and medium-sized enterprises are increasingly optimistic that their businesses will improve in the second half of the year and are planning to make more investments and hire more workers, according to a survey released on Tuesday. The semiannual survey, conducted by HSBC, polled more than 3,400 SMEs in 12 countries in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, including more than 300 respondents across a wide range of sectors in Indonesia.

Mochamad Tjiptardjo, the country’s new top taxation official, pledged at his swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday to do his best to hit tax-revenue targets this year and continue the government’s efforts to chase down tax evaders, especially big corporations. Tax revenues are under threat this year due to the fallout from the global economic slowdown, and collection is expected to fall.

PT Pertamina Gas (Pertagas), a subsidiary of state oil and gas company PT Pertamina, has allocated about US$27 million to build a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) plant in Bekasi, west of Jakarta. The company is tendering the project, the company's president director Suharyanto told reporters Tuesday. "We expect the plant to be on stream in December 2010," Suharyanto said. The plant would process 15 mmscfd (million standard cubic feet per day) of gas and produce 130 tons of LPG per day.

The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce (Kadin) will stage an expo on small and medium enterprises from eight Southeast Asian (ASEAN) countries in Batam from July 30 to Aug. 2. Head of the Batam branch of Kadin, Nada Faza Soraya, said Tuesday that business players from the ASEAN countries - Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar and the Philippines - had confirmed they will participate in the four-day event.

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: Sanyo Electric Co Ltd Global the Japanese electronic appliances maker reprtedly to move some of its capacity from its facility in China to Indonesia, the Industry Department said on Tuesday. Director of Telematics of the Industry Departemnet Ramon Bangun said Sanyo to switch its digital camera production capacity to Indonesia, which will improve production by 3 million units annually to 10.5 million units.

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: Trade Department said Canadian Research in Motion, the producer of the latest communication gadget, Blacberry will face sanctions if the company failed to comply with local regulation on after sales service.