With weak oil market, time is ripe for managed floating fuel prices

Vincent Lingga, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Headline | Thur, December 17 2014. Now that steadily declining international oil prices have hit a five-year low at US$60/ barrel, compared to the $105 average assumed for the 2015 fiscal year, the government has a great opportunity to slash, or even abolish,...

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View Point: Shaking up and cleansing the oil regulatory body

Vincent Lingga, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Opinion | Sun, November 30 2014, 1:15 PM The fastest pace and widest breadth of reform taking place under President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s 50-day-old government has taken place at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) for the right reason. The...

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Finding the best path toward sustainable palm oil

 Vincent Lingga, The Jakarta Post, Kuala Lumpur | Opinion | Tue, November 25 2014, 8:43 AM The world’s largest palm-oil companies gathered here last week, sharing the best practices of what is assessed as the model of sustainable oil-palm plantation development. Several of them magnanimously...

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The week in review: Jokowi and childish lawmakers

What a striking difference between the executive and legislative branches of the government. On one side, the House of Representatives has been wasting taxpayers’ money on protracted squabbles less than one month after its installation, with the coalition of opposition parties continuing to pursue...

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Commentary: Cutting red tape will reduce business risks, bolster investment

Vincent Lingga, The Jakarta Post Jakarta, The Jakarta Post, | Fri, October 31 2014, 9:26 AM President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s surprise inspection of the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) on Tuesday, only one day after he installed his Working Cabinet, will not immediately solve the business licensing...

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View Point: Smuggling makes fuel-subsidy cut even more imperative

Vincent Lingga, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Opinion | Sun, September 28 2014, 1:37 PM Several military (TNI) and police members were embroiled in a brawl at a housing complex on Batam Island near Singapore early this week after a police raid nearby on an alleged illegal storage house of subsidized...

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The week in review: Past rhetoric, daunting tasks

The hot stories and the main topic of heated debates during the week after the Aug. 21 constitutional confirmation of Joko “Jokowi” Widodo as Indonesia’s new president beginning on Oct. 20 remain the complex and daunting economic challenges his government must immediately confront.  Foremost...

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Commentary: Jokowi’s transition team should prepare crisis-management center

President-elect Joko “Jokowi” Widodo describes the team set up under Rini Mariani Soemarno Soewandi as a transition team because its job is to prepare a smooth transfer of power from the outgoing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono administration later in October. But a crisis-management center...

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View Point: Jailing ex-BI governors and deputy governors

Even though over the past 10 years, eight former Bank Indonesia (BI) governors and deputy governors have been jailed for corruption or other forms of wrongdoing, I beg to disagree with the Jakarta Corruption Court’s panel of judges which decided on Wednesday that the November 2008 bailout of Bank...

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The week in review: Grim economy clouds campaign

More bad economic news has clouded the campaign for the July 9 presidential election, two weeks before the campaign period ends.  That is not because of the shocking statement by presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto last Sunday that the state had lost Rp 7.2 quadrillion due to corruption...

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How Salim Group reemerged from near bankruptcy to vast conglomerate

When autocratic president Soeharto fell in May 1998 after almost 32 years of rule with steady, robust economic growth, he left behind an economy in shambles floating on a corrupt bureaucratic system polluted by business cronyism and nepotism. So fragile was the foundation of the economy that...

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