Indonesia is Best Emerging Market, Blackstone’s Studzinski Says

Indonesia is the best emerging market because of prospective growth in metals, mining and agriculture, said John Studzinski, senior managing director of Blackstone Group LP. 

“Agriculture will be increasingly important given commodity prices,” Studzinski said at the Bloomberg Link Hedge Fund Conference in London today. Source: Bloomberg

Indonesia's Timah plans March tin shipment to Japan

* Japan buys account for 18 pct of Timah's tin exports
* Timah to stick to delivery schedule for term buyers
* Infrastructure may make tin deliveries difficult -analyst (Timah corrects earlier statement on lack of Japan shipment) 

Indonesia's state-owned PT Timah (TINS), the world's largest integrated tin miner, will make a shipment to quake-hit Japan this month and is keeping its delivery schedule to term buyers, an official said on Thursday. 

Japan accounts for 18 percent of Timah's shipments, and the firm sends the metal to ports in southern Japan that have been unaffected by last week's devastating quake and tsunami in the northeast, corporate secretary Abrun Abubakar told Reuters. 

"We do have a schedule to ship tin to Japan this month and we will stick to the shipping schedule," the company's corporate secretary Abrun Abubakar told Reuters, without giving any further details on the shipment. 

Japan's demand for tin from Indonesia, the world's top exporter, will be reduced following the quake, but it is too early to assess the scale of the impact, consulting firm ITRI said earlier this week. 

"Timah ships the metal to ports in southern Japan such as Kobe, Kawasaki and Nagoya," said Abubakar. "That's why there's no delay in the tin shipment to Japan." 

Last month, Timah said refined tin production in 2010 was 40,413 tonnes, down from 45,086 tonnes in 2009 as heavy rains hampered mining and easily recoverable onshore reserves are declining, a trend that has driven tin prices to record highs this year.

Japan, the world's third-largest economy, was hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami last Friday. 

Operators of a quake-crippled nuclear plant in Japan dumped water on overheating reactors on Thursday while the United States expressed growing alarm about leaking radiation and urged its citizens to stay well clear of the area. 

"Some Japanese users' production facilities will be impacted, either by damage or power disruption," said David Thurtell, a Citi metals analyst in Singapore. 

"Whether they would stockpile material or stop importing is hard to say," he added. "Infrastructure damage may make delivery more difficult." 

Tin for three-month delivery on the London metal Exchange traded at $28,699 a tonne at 0626 GMT. The metal, used in solders and tinplate, touched an all-time high at $32,799 in mid-February. 

A crackdown on illegal mining since 2006, tighter export regulations, declining onshore reserves and rain that has hindered production in Indonesia have helped drive the tin rally.

"Tin concentrates would probably be easily absorbed in China or other parts of Asia," added Thurtell. "Mine concentrate shortages over the past six or seven months will have left plenty of spare refining capacity." 

Indonesia, which supplies nearly 30 percent of the world's tin, produced 78,965 tonnes of the refined metal in 2010, the energy and minerals ministry said late last year, but production is expected to reach 90,000 tonnes in 2011. 

Indonesia will restrict annual output to a 100,000 tonnes if record high prices trigger a new scramble for the metal, a senior official said in January. 

Late last month, Timah said that first-quarter production would be lower than expected because of rains and rough seas. Source: Reuters

Japan is not yet asking more coal supplies, Rajasa Said

Japan is not yet asking for more coal supplies from Indonesia to meet its energy demand after the quake crippled a nuclear power plant, said Hatta Rajasa, chief economic minister said on Thursday. Source: Reuters

Fitch says may not wait 12 mths to upgrade Indonesia

Fitch Ratings said on Thursday it may not wait 12 months to upgrade Indonesia's sovereign rating to investment grade, though weak infrastructure in the country was the key risk to any upgrade.


Fitch last month upgraded the country's outlook to positive from stable because of strong economic growth and falling debt, and said favourable prospects meant its credit profile was likely to strengthen further over the next 12 to 18 months.

"We're not saying we will wait definitely 12 months," said Andrew Colquhoun, head of Fitch's Asia-Pacific sovereign ratings, at a briefing in Jakarta.

The positive outlook from Fitch put Indonesia a notch away from an upgrade to BBB-, an investment grade status that would put it on a par with BRIC nations such as China. Source: Reuters

Indocement Q4 net profit falls 4 pct on higher costs

PT Indocement Tunggal Perkasa (INTP), Indonesia's biggest cement maker by market value, on Thursday said its fourth-quarter 2010 net profit fell 4 percent as costs climbed.

The firm's fourth quarter net profit was 841 billion rupiah ($95.8 million) in 2010, compared with 878 billion rupiah in the same period a year earlier, Reuters calcuations showed based on published full-year and nine-months results.

Indocement, controlled by cement giant HeidelbergCement AG , reported a full year 2010 net profit of 3.224 trillion rupiah, up 17 percent from 2.747 trillion rupiah a year earlier.

Analysts forecast full-year 2010 net profit up 21 percent to 3.33 trillion rupiah, according to Thomson Reuters Starmine.
Indocement's 2010 full-year net revenue rose 5.3 percent to 11.14 trillion rupiah.

The firm is expanding its current cement production capacity of 18.6 million tonnes a year with another two million tonnes by 2012, building a new plant this year.

Indocement shares were 2.7 percent to 14,300 rupiah on Thursday before the result, and have slipped 10 percent this year to underperform the Jakarta index . ($1 = 8775 Rupiah). Source: Reuters