Interview: Notary Rainy Hendriany Provides Latest Update on Rules for Land Ownership by Foreigners in Bali, Indonesia. Despite failed promises by the Indonesian government to liberalize the rules on foreign land ownership and expectations that the international real estate conference held in Bali in May would herald a change in the rules, little appears to have changed in long-standing prohibitions against property ownership by non-Indonesians.

Indonesian top politicians and policy makers are all talking about our competitiveness in the world market. Some are quoting the results of World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index (LPI) 2007 and 2010, which basically demonstrates the lack of competitiveness in the Indonesian logistics system.

Quoting: flingwing This, then, prompts the question: “how can we convert our long-term, often hard-won knowledge of this place into money now”? so, you want to monetize your experience here? problem is, most newbies coming to this country don't value such experience. they would usually rather use their very good indonesian friend who they have known for the past month, and who they trust completely, and who has all these really high-level connections.

An increasingly image-conscious Indonesia is seeing a boom in plastic surgery. The industry has enjoyed 400 percent growth over the past five years, according to a representative of the Indonesian Plastic Surgeons Association (Perapi). Dr. Teddy Prasetyono, former secretary general of the association, said the number of licensed plastic surgeons operating in the country, and the number of clients, was at an all-time high.

Labor costs and the value of China’s currency are sending ripples around Asia as countries jostle to lure manufacturers that are rethinking their Chinese operations, analysts and officials said. Worker unrest at foreign-owned factories and the prospect of higher wage costs are causing some manufacturers to consider Indonesia as well as Bangladesh, India and Vietnam, where wages remain relatively low.

The Agriculture Ministry is renewing calls for Australia to open its borders to Indonesian fruit as part of ambitious efforts to grow the country’s tiny fruit export industry by thirtyfold by the end of the year. The head of agricultural quarantine at the Ministry of Agriculture, Hari Priyono, said the latest call comes after two years of unsuccessful attempts to export fruit such as mangos to Australia.

That article is a veritable tour-de-force of economic history. In it, it states something an investment counselor said: “When we started out in 2003, nobody wanted to look at Indonesia”. For many “old hands” we can go one better. We can say: “When we started out here in the 1970s and 1980s, no one in our home countries knew how to spell Indonesia”. This, then, prompts the question: “how can we convert our long-term, often hard-won knowledge of this place into money now”?