Indonesia has state-owned enterprises (SOE) possessing a total asset of over $200 billion (and projected to rise to $250 billion by the end of 2010), that is the same as Thailand’s GDP 2009. Three largest SOE’s (PT Telkom Indonesia, Pertamina, and Adhikarya) said yesterday that they’d plan to build a super tall building somewhere in Jakarta [...]
As many as seven Indonesian are among the list of richest people in the world in Forbes 2010. The seven men are brothers of the Djarum tobacco company, Michael Hartono and Budi Hartono, who were in a 258th position with their respective wealth of 3.5 billion U.S. dollars. Apart from Djarum, their money machine is BCA. [...]
More than anything else, people expect their government to create an environment within which they can get on with their lives. Creature comforts add to the quality of life, by reducing the effort required for daily chores. The buying and selling of these simpler pleasures of life are pillars of the economy. The signs for the [...]
As posted few weeks ago, again, GNFI needs to underline that Thailand is the most serious competitor for Indonesia in many ways. Both are rice producers, natural product exporters, Southeast Asia’s two biggest car manufacturers, rich of cultural heritage, have long historical path, and many more. Thailand’s economy is almost half-sized of Indonesia’s. It enjoys [...]
Many countries are going badly. Indonesia was always going to be one. Or so we thought. It’s turned out to be one of the surprise success stories. For Australia, Indonesia was always the dark zone of dread, where bad things happened with worse to come. This wasn’t entirely baseless. Soekarno’s communist demagoguery was real. The brutal [...]
After five months of rigorous training, Indonesian David Gurnani shed more than 80kg to become the very first Biggest Loser Asia, defeating competitors Aaron Mokhtar, Carlo Miguel and Martha Lai at the live taping of the reality show’s finale at the National Film Development Corporation (Finas) yesterday. At the final weigh-in yesterday, Gurnani (nicknamed King David [...]
Governor of the Province of Bangka Belitung (Babel), Eko Maulana Ali, assessing, building Nuclear Power Plant (nuclear plant) is feasible and strategic in that province. “Development of nuclear power plants is quite feasible and strategic in this province to overcome the problem of electricity crisis,” he said in Pangkalpinang. According to him, as the province of Bangka [...]
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, in Canberra, to accept the granting of a badge of honor “Honorary Companion of the Order of Australia” awarded by the Commonwealth of Australia Governor-General Quentin Bryce AC. The award was made at the official residence of Governor-General in the “Government House” in Canberra, in a series of honorary state visit by [...]
As the world celebrates its 100th International Women’s Day, CNN takes a look at the key women who are shaping Asia’s political and economic landscape! Zhang Yin, China In the 1990s Zhang Yin decided to form a company to ship American scrap paper back to China to turn into cardboard boxes for export. It was a stroke [...]
If you’ve been following this blog you probably realised there are a ton of people in Bali called Made ( Ma day ), Nyoman and Putu. There’s a good reason for this. In Balinese culture if you are the first born ( male or female ) you will be called either Putu, Wayan or Nengah. [...]