Today, Indonesian taxi and public transportation drivers staged another demonstration in Jakarta. They protest against the presence of app-based mobile applications such as Uber Taxi, GrabCar and Go-Jek that all recently started offering transportation services in the bigger cities of Indonesia and have become increasingly popular, at the expense of the financial performance of established transportation services such as taxis, public buses, bajaj (three-wheeled scooters) and ojek (motor taxi). The demonstration turned violent on Tuesday morning.

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Since April 2015 sales of alcoholic beverages in kiosks or minimarkets in Indonesia are forbidden. Previously, light alcoholic beverages, such as beer or breezers, could be bought in these shops that have mushroomed in Indonesian cities. This was bad news for producers of light alcoholic beverages because it was made less easy to buy an alcoholic beverage. For such a drink you now have to go to the (licensed) supermarkets and hypermarkets or visit a cafe or restaurant. This increases the distance you need to travel for a drink or - when drinking in a cafe or restaurant - it becomes much more expensive.

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Demand for lighting in Indonesia will rise in line with the rising electrification ratio (the percentage of households that are connected to the nation's electricity grid). Indonesia's electrification ratio stood at 85 percent in 2015, implying there are still around 40 million Indonesians that do not have instant access to electricity. The government is eager to raise the electrification ratio and this means that demand for lighting should grow accordingly. However, a large portion of lamps/lighting that is sold in Indonesia is still imported from abroad. As such, there should be lucrative business opportunities in Indonesia's lighting industry.

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Indonesia's crude oil output was strong in the first quarter of 2016 on the back of higher-than-expected oil production of several oil companies in Indonesia. According to Indonesia's oil & gas regulator SKK Migas the nation's oil production totaled 833,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the January-March 2016 period, exceeding the oil lifting target that was set in the 2016 State Budget (830,000 bpd). It also means that the globe's low oil prices at the year-start, touching 12-year lows at around USD $27 per barrel, did not make local oil companies cut back on production rates.

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