With prices for key commodities at record highs, Indonesia — Southeast Asia’s biggest economy and a key exporter — should, at first glance, be enjoying good times.
But with high oil prices leading to a government fuel subsidy blowout and rising food prices hitting the poor, analysts say most Indonesians are being squeezed.
Indonesia is the world’s [...]

Plantation firm PPB Oil Palms Bhd. said Thursday it is confident Malaysian regulators won’t block its US$4.3 billion (euro3.6 billion) merger with Singapore palm oil refiner Wilmar International Ltd.
“I don’t think the government will stop (the deal) but they might impose conditions,” Oh Siew Nam, executive chairman of PPB Group Bhd. which is the parent [...]

Japan, dependent on imports for 99 percent of its oil and gas, may turn to Iraq and Indonesia after it lost control of Iran’s biggest untapped field.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government promised this week to invest in Iraq’s shattered energy industry in the hope that Japan will be able to tap the world’s third-largest [...]

Mexico’s President-elect Felipe Calderon met Friday with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and top officials to discuss boosting bilateral auto trade and Mexico’s entry into a South American trade bloc.
Calderon also met with Brazilian Trade Minister Luiz Furlan and Foreign Minister Celso Amorim. In addition to trade, the two countries discussed Mexico’s possible [...]

The Ministry of Industry is proposing a ban on its industry’s export of molasses, the raw material for ethanol, as a measure to support the development of alternative energy biofuel, Kompas reported.
‘I have submitted the export ban proposal to the Trade Ministry and Agriculture Ministry,’ the report quoted Industry Minister Fahmi Idris as saying.