Adrian Batten
Adrian Batten is a Hong Kong-based writer on Southeast Asian affairs.

ACCORDING to Steve Miller, who heads up HSBC’s division for small business enterprises, Indonesia’s prospects for weathering the global recession are good. “SMEs will continue to drive the Indonesian economy in 2009,” he said in Jakarta this January.

HSBC put US$680 million of its money where its mouth is when purchasing an 89 percent share of Bank Ek