1. SBA News
March has been a rather slow month. We have a few new members, welcome to you all. The Crash course had to rest and unfortunately, the survey was delayed until end of this month, beginning of May. April on the other hand seems to be a more busy month.

1. SBA News
February was a rather busy month for us. The business delegation to Korea, which you can read more about below, our crash course on Corporate tax, just in time for the coming filing of tax return and our annual meeting. The crash course gave all participant a valuable and complete picture on the changing tax department. The tricks and tips will at least save me a big bunch of tax money, which can be reinvested in the business. The informal format made it possible to put things like corruption and collusion on the table. Not as easy and obvious as many believe. The annual meeting went of at Shangrila as planned. Lars Lindqvist from Swedish Match introduced us all in to the secrets of cigars after the meeting. The new board is as follows: Ilpo Saarisivu as Chairman, Per Brandt as vice Chairman, Per Thuresson as Treasurer and Michael Olsson as Secretary. Stefan Meurling will continue as our auditor. We welcome the new board for a prosperous new year.

1. SBA News
The first month of the year has started out better than many thought. For SBA we have started off with several events and our crash course. The Nordic Luncheon with John Prasetio and Sofyan Wanandi, hosted by our Finnish collegues where a great success as well as our luncheon with Tanri Abeng and Lippo Karawachi. Both sessions where in the infrastructure direction and both events had around 50 participants. The important message we got where that local companies are investing in infrastructure and they are more than happy to work with foreign investors to ensure transparancy as well as profitability. The first crash course had 16 participants and the new format was very much appreciated. A balance between the theory and the practical gave all the participants a good view on what to expect and how to act when labor questions and disputes comes to their company agenda. The events for February:

1. SBA News
The holidays are now behind us, not as happy as we would like, with the earth quake catastrophy in the rear mirror. But 2005 is here and life has to go on.

During December we had the traditional Lucia reception at the residence and Lennart made a good job to give us far away Swedes a taste of our Swedish Christmas traditions.

We will start the New Year with two new members, TetraPak and Chubbs, they are both very welcome to our crowd. Further more we have several exciting events to look forward against in January.

January 19, 9.00 - 12.00, at Aryaduta Hotel - Crash Course in Labor regulation - We will have a seminar session with Yulius Indra P. Darnadi from Ongko Sidharta & Partners as speaker of the Labor regulation and followed by Michael Olsson from BMOlsson giving some practical tricks and tips on how to survive the legal jungle. There will be examples of company rule, employment agreement etc to take home. Self cost of IDR 150,000 for members and IDR 250,000 for non-members. Limited space so contact me ASAP and book your place.

January 20, 12.00 - 14.00, at Aryaduta Hotel - James Riady and Gordon Benton from Lippo Karawachi will speak on private town management in a fully sponsored business luncheon. If you are looking for alternatives to your combined living and company needs, this is the event you don't want to miss. Limited space so contact me ASAP and book your place.

January 25, 19.00, Hotel Gran Melia - our quarterly Nordic Event hosted by the Finnish Business Association will be held. Guest speaker is John A Prasetio, chairman of Kadin. He will be talking about Indonesias future, which now of course includes the recent catastrophy. He will be able to give us some insight on the impact of the catastrophy for business and reformation work to get Indonesia back on track. A self cost of IDR 200,000 will be charged.

1. SBA News
The NIR delegation was here and with Jan Waldorf as the captain they manage to cruise through the Indonesian business and political elite. Specially interesting was the meeting arranged by Kadin with Sofyan Wanandi as host. Furthermore the positive response from minister with vice president Yusuf Kalla as the trumph really made an impression on the delegation and us from SBA. The message was very clear, Indonesia is now changing and the new Indonesia intend to compete for the foreign direct investments seriously.
Don't miss the Lucia festivities at the Ambassadors residence on December 14, the annual tradition continues. There will not be so many more things happening during December since many leaves for holidays.
Our annual meeting will be on February 24 (evening) so put that in your calender as well. Venue and exact time is still to be determined.
We would also like to welcome H&M as a new corporate member and hope that all the services from SBA will gain a further expansion for them here in Indonesia.