A villager taps a rubber tree, Lubuk Beringin village, Bungo district, Jambi province, Indonesia (Photo by Tri Saputro for the Center for International Forestry Research).

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the impact of falling oil and commodities prices on resource-exporting countries. A prolonged commodities slump has caused Indonesia’s economy to slow drastically. Last year, Indonesia saw its slowest growth rate since 2002; the currency lost 11 percent of its value; and trade levels were at their lowest since the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s. In an email interview, Arianto Patunru, a fellow in the Arndt-Corden department of economics at the Australian National University’s Crawford School of Public Policy, discussed Indonesia’s economy and its dependence on commodities […]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pose before a meeting in New Delhi, India, Oct. 5, 2015 (AP photo by Saurabh Das).

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to India in early October was the second summit-level meeting she has had with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the span of a month. These talks have themselves been preceded by a flurry of other high-level exchanges. Both sides seem keen to dispel any notion of a lack of momentum in bilateral relations, a view that has arisen ever since Modi failed to meet Merkel in Berlin during his trip to Germany last year. Germany is eager to take advantage of Modi’s renewed push for economic growth through clean energy initiatives and manufacturing. Germany has […]

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe shakes hands with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the U.N. Headquarters, New York, Sept. 27, 2015 (Photo by the Yomiuri Shimbun via AP Images).

During a meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York last week, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani focused on economic ties. They agreed to work closely to conclude recent talks on a mutual investment deal that would facilitate Japanese companies investing in Iran. Abe held out investment as an inducement for Iran to comply with the agreement to limit Tehran’s nuclear program inked between Iran and the six world powers, known as the P5+1, earlier this summer. But Japan is also keen to resume the flow of energy imports from […]