The Government of Indonesia has appointed state-owned oil and gas firm Pertamina to operate 8 oil & gas blocks after contracts with existing operators expire in 2018. Indonesia’s new gross profit sharing scheme, which replaced the nation’s cost recovery scheme, will be applied to the new contracts in 2018. Under the gross profit sharing scheme the Indonesian Government and contractors agree up front on the proportion for splitting gross profit from oil and gas exploration (implying that all exploration and production costs are now borne by the operator).

More than four years ago (July, 2012), Tommy Winata (Artha Graha Group) attended the groundbreaking of iron ore smelting facility in Batulicin, South Kalimantan province to be built by PT Batulicin Steel (Jhonlin Group). Jhonlin Group is among major coal players in the country with assets in South Kalimantan and Central Kalimantan.

Remember Steward D Hall? Right, he was CEO of Bank Permata, jointly owned by Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) and Astra International, for almost five years. He is currently key person behind ASX-listed Range International’s expansion in Indonesia. Not in banking sector, but in plastic pallet industry.

We’ve been talking about the need to build new airport in Yogyakarta for more than a decade now. Inaction of the previous leaders contributed to poorer quality of services of the airport in the past few years. The terminal, for example, only capable to handle up to 1.5 million passengers per annum, while number of passengers already surpassed 6 million three years ago. The airstrip is only 2,200m length, unable to handle wide-body aircrafts.

One million homes is one of priority programs of Jokowi-Kalla administration to tackle the growing housing backlog. While the program has never reached the one million homes mark, we noticed some improvements compared to the same program under the previous administration of SBY-Boediono.

World crude steel production for the 66 countries reporting to the World Steel Association was 134.1 million tons (Mt) in December 2016, up 5.5% than December 2015. Accordingly crude steel production for full year 2016 reached 1.628 billion tons, inched up 0.8% from the previous year. China and India were the only top producing countries reporting positive growth last year.

Amin Supriyadi Liu might not be as popular as Riady (Lippo), Ciputra, Wijaya (Sinarmas), or Tedja (Pakuwon) in the country’s property industry. Amin, however, is considered one of few ‘masters’ of land acquisition in the country. He is widely linked to acquisition of 350 hectares of land for PT Sumber Air Mas Pratama, member of Agung Podomoro Group, in Teluk Jambe area. Mr Liu, interestingly, has grown his own property empire.

People live in the greater Jakarta area will likely enjoy some additional toll roads entering commercial operation this year. Section I of the Bekasi-Cawang-Kampung Melayu (Becakayu) with total length of 11.5 KM is scheduled for commercial operation in May because physical construction already reached 85.4% this month. In the second half, Section II of Cinere-Jagorawi toll road is expected to start commercial operation.

Indonesia’s sixth president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his network continued to criticize Jokowi-Kalla administration’s infrastructure development. But, looks like President Jokowi is determined to push for faster development instead, especially for power plants, ports, airports, railways, toll roads, bridges, and mass transportation projects.

Chinese fintech company Wecash has recently established PT Digital Tunai Kita, a joint venture with investment management company PT Kresna Graha Investama Tbk (KREN). Six Capital (Singapore), meanwhile, has signed agreement with Indonesia’s largest university UGM to establish digital innovation center in the country.