• Palm Oil Update: Indonesia's CPO Export Up in Volume, Down in Earnings

    The value of Indonesia's exports of crude palm oil (CPO) and its derivatives plunged 11.8 percent year-on-year (y/y) to USD $18.6 billion in 2015 from USD $21.1 billion in the preceding year. However, in terms of volume, Indonesian exports of CPO and its derivatives actually rose 21.7 percent to 26.4 million tons. The higher volume but lower earnings are explained by the palm oil price. Palm oil traded at an average of USD $614.20 per ton in 2015, down 24.9 percent (y/y) from an average price of USD $818.20 per ton in 2014.

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  • Indonesia's Movie & Tourism Industries Opened Wider to Foreign Investment

    The government of Indonesia is to allow bigger foreign ownership in a number of sectors. These sectors involve the cinema/film industry, tourism, leisure, trade, as well as the sugar and rubber industries. The move to increase opportunities for foreign investors by revising the country's Negative Investment List (in Indonesian: Daftar Negatif Investasi) is part of the government's ninth economic stimulus package (to be released soon), is designed to attract more foreign direct investment (FDI) into Indonesia.

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  • Indonesia & ASEAN Economic Community: Free Flow of Skilled Labor

    With the implementation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) per 1 January 2016 - i.e. the community that is designed to allow the free flow of goods, services, investment, and skilled labor as well as the freer flow of capital among its ten member countries - there has been concern among part of the Indonesian population whether there could occur a massive inflow of foreign workers into Indonesia hence giving rise to more competition on the domestic labor market. This column zooms in on the free flow of labor under the AEC.

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  • Stock Market & Rupiah Update Indonesia: Bad Day at the Office

    Again Asian stock markets went into deep red territory. Japan officially entered a bear market (the Nikkei 225 Index plunged 3.71 percent today), Singapore's benchmark Straits Times Index hit a more than four-year low after declining nearly 3 percent, while Philippine stocks dropped to a near-oversold level after falling 1.53 percent. At first Indonesia's benchmark Jakarta Composite Index managed to limit losses. However, towards the end of Wednesday's trading day pressure became too much, hence dropping 1.42 percent.

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