The government says it is preparing measures to reinvigorate the industry-based cluster program, which has faced serious obstacles including overlapping land titles and infrastructure bottlenecks. Industry Minister Mohamad S. Hidayat on Thursday said a regulation was being drafted to provide a legal basis for fiscal incentives for companies with investments in five industrial clusters. The clusters are located in Riau, North Sumatra, East Kalimantan, East Java and Merauke provinces.

Historical, political and cultural binds between Indonesia and India prove too strong for challenges to shake years of good relations between the two countries, with the most recent incident involving Indians and Indonesians in Batam now only a distant memory. “We are now in the process of settling the issue out of court. We have tried to develop a solution that will be acceptable to all.

Indonesian stocks are traded by Japanese investors every day, but one recent request from Tokyo was out of the ordinary. A big investor phoned up a local fund manager asking to buy $1bn in equities on the Jakarta stock exchange within just 20 days. Jakarta is not liquid enough to handle that kind of money. But the anecdote shows the scale of interest that has made it one the world’s best performing stock markets this year.

SINGAPORE -- Singapore investors are flocking to Indonesia with an eye to tapping its rich commodity reserves and fast-expanding consumer base. Foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country - once shunned because of its corruption, political unrest and poor infrastructure - rocketed from SG$508 million (US$372 million) in 2006 to SG$4.4 billion last year, according to International Enterprise (IE) Singapore figures.

Models present creations by Indonesian designer Ian Adrian The fashion models lounged in the public hallway of a Jakarta retail mall in hot pants, batting false eyelashes and adjusting their hairdos. Minutes later, they hit the catwalk wearing headscarves and covered by full-length prayer gowns in an auditorium closed to men.

JAKARTA, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- The Indonesian government plans to provide fiscal incentives for investment in five provinces in the sectors of agriculture, oil and gas, a paper reported here Friday. Industry Minister Mohamad S. Hidayat quoted by the Jakarta Post as saying that a regulation was being drafted to provide a legal basis for the incentives for companies with investments in five industrial clusters.

Indonesia’s state port firm will start building a new container terminal in Jakarta this year to cope with overflowing volumes at the main shipment hub in Indonesia’s capital as trade grows. The first phase of the 22tn rupiah ($2.45bn) project is expected to be completed in two years, with funds coming from domestic and foreign firms as investor interest grows in developing infrastructure in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy.

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Industry Minister MS Hidayat hoped Indonesia`s exports could be increased to reduce any trade deficit. "China indeed is now the preference for increasing exports of commodities. They now import more than exporting. But we hope ahead of 2011 we can increase the exports," he said after a coordination meeting here on Thursday.