The government plans to cap crude palm oil exports at 50 percent of output by 2015 and 30 percent by 2020 in a bid to boost the downstream processing sector, Industry Minister MS Hidayat said on Monday. “We want Indonesian industry to focus on providing finished material out of CPO,” Hidayat said, adding that by 2020 the total domestic output of crude palm oil is expected to reach 40 million tons.

An ambitious initiative to allow cross-border trading between several south-east Asian stock exchanges took a significant step towards completion yesterday with a firm commitment to technology for the project. Four leading exchanges said they had signed a letter of intent at a meeting in Manila with NYSE Technologies, the technology arm of NYSE Euronext, the transatlantic exchange that owns the New York Stock Exchange.

Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Indonesia’s economy probably expanded at the fastest pace in a year in the fourth quarter as lower interest rates and government stimulus spurred consumer spending. Asian economies from China to Vietnam are picking up speed after policy makers boosted spending and cut borrowing costs to counter the global recession.