The Financial Services Authority (OJK) has expanded its regular monitoring of financial inclusion and literacy to the fintech industry to gauge the accessibility of services, as well as people’s understanding of those services.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has urged his ministers to scale up the country’s food estate megaproject to boost agricultural productivity, even as technical problems continue to plague the program in its third year.

The government will continue to waive export levies on palm oil products, allowing the world’s largest supplier to keep boosting shipments abroad for the rest of this year.

The Agriculture Ministry’s Quarantine Agency (Barantan) announced that 1,940 tonnes of quarantined imported goods, which had been detained for 35 days, had finally passed health inspections and been released from facilities.

The government is preparing a regulation draft on carbon capture storage (CCS) and carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) as the country seeks to push its adoption to reduce carbon emissions from hard-to-abate industries, but whether this will be effective depends largely on a working financing mechanism.

The House of Representatives passed the 2023 state budget bill into law, restoring a targeted shortfall of below 3 percent, which has been detaining Indonesian fiscal expansion for the past three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Indonesian Ombudsman has urged the Agriculture Ministry and other government bodies to solve a horticulture imports conundrum that has seen billions of rupiah worth of goods detained.

State-owned electricity monopoly PLN has canceled its electric stove conversion program, two days after the company said that it had begun a trial with a total of 2,000 beneficiaries.  

The trade and investment meeting got all countries to agree on the need to reform the WTO. And Indonesia hopes the Bali Compendium it introduced gives it the upper hand in a dispute on nickel exports.

Bank Indonesia (BI) has passed its second key interest rate hike this year, just a day after the United States Federal Reserve raised rates by 75 basis points (bps) for the third time in a row.

Presidential Regulation No. 112/2022 is expected to help EVs become cleaner as it stipulates the early retirement of coal-fired power plants and provides a “relatively good” pricing scheme for electricity generated from renewables, making NRE projects more appealing to investors.

Trade Ministry International Trade Negotiations Director General Djatmiko Bris Witjaksono insists Indonesia could appeal a WTO decision or use other means to protect its strategic interests.

To encourage local production, the Agriculture Ministry aims to expand the soybean planting area by 600,000 hectares in 2023.

The Indonesian Ombudsman estimated importers had to suffer a total loss of around Rp 3.2 billion (US$214,240), consisting of Rp 2.43 billion in utility costs and Rp 777 million in demurrage fees.

The government is pushing consumers to rely more on electricity and less on oil or gas as part of the country’s energy transition, but environmentalists and a researcher have told The Jakarta Post the move, for now, means little more than shifting from one fossil fuel to another.

The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry aims to implement measures to reduce Indonesia’s dependence on imported liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has mandated the use of electric vehicles (EVs) for government officials across the country in a move aimed at expediting the country’s transition to battery-powered transportation, but experts say that this alone will not mean the general public will follow suit.

After the recent fuel price hikes, some wonder why even supposedly unsubsidized gasoline in Indonesia is still priced far below global standards despite the high cost of oil imported to the country. And it has a lot to do with definitions.

The government has revised up its revenue projection for next year’s state budget, banking on higher income from taxes and extractive industries, but a planned hike in spending means this will not translate into a lower deficit.

Electric vehicle producers in Indonesia are expecting drivers to switch to battery power as rising gasoline and diesel prices make combustion engines less appealing.

The Commerce Department intends to publish new regulations based on restrictions communicated in letters earlier this year to three US companies -- KLA Corp, Lam Research Corp and Applied Materials Inc, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The plan for new rules has not been previously reported.

The International Monetary Fund is reportedly looking for ways to provide emergency funding to countries facing war-induced food price shocks and will discuss measures at an executive board meeting on Monday.

Planned regulations aimed at strengthening data protection in Indonesia pose a significant threat to companies found to be noncompliant.

The government says the ICP set for next year takes into account the prospects of a spike in world oil consumption during the winter as well as disrupted supplies from Russia.

India exports rice to more than 150 countries, and any reduction in its shipments would increase upward pressure on food prices, which are already rising because of drought, heat-waves and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Two large transportation groups have objected to the government's new fare structure for on-demand motorcycle taxis, saying the adjusted fares were disproportionate to the recent fuel hike.

While some multinational companies have been putting solar photovoltaic (PV) panels on their buildings in Indonesia, significant growth in green energy infrastructure won’t happen until the government creates an enabling environment, experts say.

The Transportation Ministry has taken several steps to avoid steep price rises, namely by adjusting the tariff on economy-class public transportation, especially on land transportation modes. 

Palm farmers have expressed hope that low prices of fresh fruit bunches will start to rise significantly on the back of extended CPO export levy waiver, but warned that the policy will be in vain if regulations are poorly implemented.

The government is considering changing pricing guidelines for poultry to stem a persistent dip in the price of chicken meat at the farmer level amid high input costs.