Economy

A popular and official local provincial motto reads “success and prosperity only come with effort”, and it is clear that these days, East Java is taking this wisdom seriously. The push to amplify economic growth is seeing major efforts under way to attract more investment and develop the region’s economy.

For both foreign and domestic investors, opportunities abound in East Java, ranging from oil and gas to industrial processing and geothermal energy. However, among these, a report issued by the Indonesian Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) in 2011 on opportunities in East Java highlighted four particularly high-profile projects for private...

As a nation of 245m people, spread over three time zones and around 17,000 islands, Indonesia has always been a country of great diversity — economically, politically, culturally and ethnically.

Labour relations emerged in 2012 as one of the key downside risks facing Indonesia. Already constrained by one of the world’s most restrictive labour laws, new rules in 2012 hiking the minimum wages in important industrial production areas and curbing the use of outsourced staff to circumvent rules on full-time employees have prompted protests from...

Investors have traditionally focused on the largest cities in Java, but as urbanisation and growth spread to more outlying regions in the last decade attention has broadened to provincial urban centres.

Consistent performance and strong growth prospects are precious in an economically volatile world. The 17thlargest economy in the world with a GDP of just over $1trn in 2013, according to estimates from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Indonesia’s place as the largest economy in ASEAN presents a strong value proposition for investors. Already...