JAKARTA: The weighted average interest rate on Bank Indonesia
JAKARTA: The weighted average interest rate on Bank Indonesia benchmark one-month SBI promissory notes fell to 13.06 percent, in the weekly auction held Wednesday, from 13.22 percent last week.
The fall was in line with market's expectations.
Bank Indonesia said that it accepted Rp 20 trillion, or 90.31 percent, of the total bids it received at the auction.
The central bank has been trying to drive domestic interest rates lower to reduce the cost of servicing bonds issued by the government to bail out local banks after the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
Bank Indonesia is expected to guide the one-month SBI rate to around 12 percent by the end of the year.
Wednesday's fall in the SBI rate, however, was smaller than those in the past several weeks. This signals a slowdown in Bank Indonesia's rate cutting after the local official statistics body warned Tuesday that inflation here is set to rise in the last three months of the year due to religious festivities and Monday's fuel price hike. -- Dow Jones
Vietnam approves controversial dam project
HANOI: The Vietnamese government said Wednesday it has approved the construction of a controversial hydroelectric power project that will force the relocation of some 16,000 people.
Prime Minister Phan Van Khai gave the green light to build Vietnam's largest infrastructure project in the northwestern province of Son La during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the Communist Party's Nhan Dan (People) daily said.
Initial plans for a 265-metre (875-feet) high dam were scaled down to 215 metres after legislators in Vietnam's usually compliant National Assembly criticized the human and environmental costs of the project.
More than 44,700 hectares (110,000 acres) of land, including a 41 kilometer (25 mile) section of a national highway would have been submerged under the original proposal. In addition, some 100,000 people, mostly ethnic minorities, would have required relocation. -- AFP
Singapore-based CEOs the second highest paid in Asia: report
SINGAPORE: Corporate chief executives in Singapore take home just under one million dollars (US$565 million) in annual salary, making them the second best paid in 12 Asian economies surveyed, a report said Wednesday.
The Straits Times, reporting on a survey carried out last year by human resource consultancy Watson Wyatt, said the pay package of a Singapore-based chief executive officer (CEO) ranged between 407,000 dollars to 2.68 million dollars.
The package -- which is nearly three times higher than the average -- includes stocks options, according to the report.
Only CEOs based in Hong Kong topped their Singaporean counterparts in the survey which covered 12 Asian economies. No comparative figures were given in the report.
"Talent is global so if you want them to be based in Singapore, you have to match international pay levels," said Ian Speirs, director of Watson Wyatt's rewards consulting, human capital group. -- AFP
U.S. auto sales slump in September
DETROIT: U.S. auto sales, one of the main driving forces behind the U.S. economy, skidded in September as potential buyers fretted about their financial futures, industry experts said Tuesday.
The seasonally adjusted annual sales pace slid to 16.3 million autos in September from 16.68 million in August, according to figures compiled by industry analyst Autodata Corp.
Sales were up only slightly from the pace of 16.18 million autos in September last year, the month of the terror attacks.
"Elevated oil prices, the geopolitical uncertainty and the disaster on the stock market; those three events ganged up on the would-be auto buyer," said Detroit-based Comerica Bank chief economist David Littmann. -- AFP