• Rubber Update: Indonesia, Thailand & Malaysia Make New Policies

    Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, the world’s three largest rubber producing countries (accounting for about 70 percent of total global natural rubber output), have agreed to avoid excessive natural rubber supply on the international market by limiting their rubber exports. The countries also agree to curb new rubber plantation development as well as to spur domestic rubber consumption in each country. This statement was read out by Douglas Uggah Embas, Plantation Industries Minister of Malaysia, in Kuala Lumpur today (20/11).

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  • Indonesian Government Seeks Private Investments in Oil Refineries

    The government of Indonesia plans to add new fuel refineries soon after such development has been postponed for many years. Today, Indonesia's total of oil refineries have roughly the same combined production capacity as a decade ago, indicating that limited progress has been made. In fact, domestic oil output has experienced a steady downward trend for almost two decades due to a lack of exploration and investments amid weak government management, bureaucracy, an unclear regulatory framework and legal uncertainty.

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  • Property Sector Indonesia: Jakarta’s Apartments still ‘Hot’

    Despite having slowed in recent years, there is still ample room for growth in Indonesia’s property sector, particularly strata title apartments in the capital city of Jakarta (‘strata title’ refers to the multi-level apartment blocks and horizontal subdivisions with shared areas). In 2015, a total of 46 property projects are expected to finish, supplying 24,954 new apartment units (with a combined value of USD $1.25 billion) to Jakarta, an 18.98 percent increase from last year’s new apartments realization.

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  • Copper Production at Freeport Indonesia Still Not Back on Track

    Production is still not back on track at Freeport Indonesia’s Grasberg mine in Papua as around 1,000 workers have not showed up for work since the second week of October. These workers refuse to work after a series of (fatal) incidents that led to concern about safety policies. In May 2013, 28 Freeport Indonesia workers died after a tunnel collapsed. More recently, in late September 2014, four workers died after a giant haulage truck collided with another vehicle (carrying nine passengers) at the Grasberg mine.

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The views expressed in these business columns are the views of the authors or the interviewed persons only and therefore do not necessarily reflect the views of Indonesia Investments. The authors are free to ventilate their opinions about the Indonesian business climate. Facts presented in these columns are the result of the author's own research or indicated sources, read disclaimer
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