An uptick in employment and a surge in confidence indicate growing optimism about business prospects.

India on Saturday allowed exports of non-basmati white rice. That came a day after New Delhi cut export duty on parboiled rice to 10 percent, buoyed by a new crop in the offing and higher inventories in state warehouses.

China's factory activity shrank for a fifth straight month and the services sector slowed sharply in September, suggesting Beijing will need even more stimulus to hit its 2024 growth target with only three months left in the year.

India gave the go-ahead on Saturday for exports of non-basmati white rice to resume as inventories in the world's biggest exporter of the grain surge and farmers prepare to harvest a new crop in the coming weeks.

Notable figures in the field of economics have hailed Sri Mulyani's capabilities during her two separate stints as finance minister over the past two decades, marked by the recent launch of her authorized biography on Sept. 20.

The incoming Prabowo administration is apparently setting its sights on boosting private sector activities, a strategy that many leading economists agree is among the keys to greater growth, alongside bureaucratic reforms to ensure certainty.

Laos' Minister of Industry and Commerce Malaythong Kommasith hopes ASEAN can strengthen ties with China, Japan and South Korea, or the “Plus Three” countries, through new economic cooperation.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo broke ground on Wednesday for a Chinese firm's property complex in the Southeast Asian nation's troubled new capital on the island of Borneo, hailing it as a pioneering foreign investment that will lure others.

Incumbent President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo ordered the ministers to immediately join the CPTPP, he said, adding that president-elect Prabowo Subianto shared the same objective.

“For middle-income countries to have high income in decades rather than centuries, it would need a miracle,” says World Bank Group chief economist Indermit Gill.

This year's elections in both Indonesia and the EU could mean another delay in the prolonged IEU-CEPA talks for concluding after the administration of Prabowo Subianto is installed next month.

China's central bank announced broad monetary stimulus and property market support measures to revive an economy grappling with strong deflationary pressures and in danger of missing this year's growth target.

The 2-gigawatt (GW) expansion of a coal-fired power plant in Suralaya, Banten, is necessary to catch up with rising electricity demand, an official with the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry says.

The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry expects Indonesia to miss by a wide margin its 2025 target for renewable power generating capacity. Experts blame uncompetitive prices and policies that support coal power.

In the first eight months of 2024, the line’s total freight volume was up 22.8 percent year-on-year at 3.58 million tons, valued at 12.38 billion yuan, a rise of 56 percent.

The United States Department of Labor has added Indonesian nickel to a list of commodities it “has reason to believe” involve forced labor, but the US Embassy says inclusion on the list, which also suspects child labor in the archipelago, does not imply sanctions.

According to the World Bank's projection, the country's rice production could fall 0.72 percent in the next 10 years due to warming temperatures, pointing to a greater need for targeted measures to keep the staple food affordable.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said on Friday it has approved a US$500 million policy-based loan to fund a program designed to help Indonesia's energy transition efforts.

This year, the ministry expects geothermal developers will realize US$664 million of investment, a figure that would bring the total realized geothermal investment in the last decade to $5.4 billion.

Kadin is currently split into two, after one faction held a disputed extraordinary congress in Jakarta on Saturday to appoint Anindya Bakrie the organization’s chair.

Indonesia's palm oil exports are expected to decline in 2024 due to increased domestic consumption because of a higher biodiesel blending mandate and a slight decrease in production, an industry official told Reuters on Thursday.

The figure is almost four times the 660-megawatt (MW) capacity of the plant that the government has chosen to phase out by December 2035, more than 15 years before the end of its potential operational life.

Investment Minister Rosan Roeslani said he is pushing for the establishment of additional green industrial zones to ensure Indonesia can compete with neighboring countries in attracting foreign investment.

Non-oil and gas exports surged 8.14 percent year-on-year (yoy), while oil and gas exports decreased by 8.73 percent yoy.

The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry is aiming to convert more former coal and mineral mines into solar power projects to boost renewable electricity generation.

ASEAN has eliminated tariffs on almost all products, comprising 98.6 percent of all tariff items, and is continuing to refine the ASEAN Single Window Tax Notification System, in order to reduce trade costs and facilitate business in the region.

Experts have called for caution over the government's ambitious plan to import dairy cattle in its push to achieve milk self-sufficiency as part of efforts to support Prabowo's flagship free meal program, pointing to existing challenges including livestock and disease management as well as smallholder well-being.

An extraordinary national congress decided on Saturday that Bakrie & Brothers CEO Anindya be sworn in as a new Kadin chairman on Monday, but the current leadership says the process violates the business group’s rules.

The move could lift edible oil prices and dampen demand and subsequently reduce overseas purchases of palm oil, soyoil and sunflower oil.

Beijing faces looming demographic crisis and an older population