JAKARTA - The Indonesian unit of Rio Tinto PLC has been granted a mining permit for its planned $2 billion nickel project on Sulawesi island, the company said Tuesday, making it the first mining company to gain investment approval under Indonesia's new mining law. Indonesia last year introduced a law that replaced the old contract system with mining permits, which many feared would reduce legal certainty for companies and make investing here more difficult.

The nation’s Investment Coordinating Board confirmed to journalists on Tuesday that tender results for the long-delayed $600 million resort project in Lombok would be released in May. “We now have a total candidate of five candidates, and Emaar [Properties] is still one of them,” Gita Wirjawan, chairman of the investment authority also known as the BKPM, said after returning from a trip to cultivate potential partners in Dubai, Doha and India.

$1b Qatari Investment Fund Nears Realization by Janeman Latul After months of uncertainty, Qatar Holding, the investment arm of the sovereign fund Qatar Investment Authority, is on the brink of establishing a wholly owned investment vehicle in Indonesia with start-up capital of $1 billion, a senior Indonesian official said on Tuesday. Gita Wirjawan, chairman of the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM), said the investment company could be officially established by the end of the month.

The government’s top investment official on Tuesday appealed to the Indonesian people not to fall under the spell of a counter-productive economic nationalism, saying foreign investment was needed to develop the economy. “Nationalism gets defined in a better way when we can start seeing capital moving into this country from outside,” said Gita Wirjawan, the chairman of the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM).

US President Barack Obama's trip to Indonesia should boost investment in Southeast Asia's biggest economy and curb negative perceptions on doing business in the nation, Indonesia's investment agency said today. Obama, who spent four years in Indonesia as a child, will make his first visit to the country as president on March 20-22.

The government is currently building an early warning system on food safety to ensure that all food products entering the country meet both national and international standards. Chairwoman of the food and drug monitoring agency (BPOM) Kustantinah said in Jakarta on Tuesday that the system would be connected online throughout the archipelago and later to the same systems in ASEAN countries and eventually to the European countries as well.

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Head of the Capital Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM), Gita Wirjawan, said he did not believe the chaos over the Bank Century case at the House plenary session on Tuesday would affect investment. "It will not affect investment in general. (As) I have already talked with would-be permanent investors intending to invest for the next five to ten years and not those intending to invest only for six months," he said here on Tuesday.

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Head of Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) Gita Wirjawan said he will start promoting investment with the slogan of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) "Remarkable Indonesia". "While other countries have slogans like Uniquelly Singapore, Incredible India, we have Remarkable Indonesia, which sounds very representative of the country," he said when receiving the slogan from Kadin Indonesia here Tuesday.