Indonesia is the world's largest archipelago. Due to the country's sheer size (implying diversity) it contains a variety of different religions and traditional beliefs. The Constitution of Indonesia, a secular democratic country containing a Muslim-majority population, guarantees all Indonesian citizens the freedom of worship, each according to his or her own religion or belief. This also means that Indonesia contains many, mostly religion-inspired, public holidays on which financial markets are closed.

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The benchmark stock index of Indonesia (Jakarta Composite Index, abbreviated JCI or IHSG) posted a series of consecutive record high closes during the past week, primarily on the central bank’s (Bank Indonesia) decision to cut its key interest rate (BI rate) by 25 basis points to 7.50 percent, investors’ positive outlook on Indonesian companies’ corporate earnings in 2015 and expectation that the Eurozone’s quantitative easing program will offset the negative impact of monetary tightening in the USA.

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The Indonesian Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources signaled that the government may (again) decide to postpone full implementation of its ban on exports of raw mineral ores and concentrates as the country still lacks sufficient smelting capacity to produce value-added mining products. Through this export ban, stipulated by the 2009 Mining Law, the Indonesian government aims to enhance revenue generation in the country’s natural resources sector by forcing miners to produce and export value-added products instead of raw materials.

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Shares of Kalbe Farma, Indonesia’s largest pharmaceutical company, have been under pressure over the past couple of days due to the deaths of two hospital patients after they had taken a medicine manufactured by Kalbe Farma. According to the Indonesian Pharmacy Association (GP Farmasi Indonesia) Buvanest Spinal, an anesthetic, was wrongly packaged and hence did not contain bupivacaine but instead tranexamic acid, which aims to stop or reduce heavy bleeding (usually used during surgery).

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