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Indonesia has entered a new era of democratization and political stability with the completion of the general election of its multi-level Parliaments last April, and the first round of direct Presidential election last July. The election in April was the world's largest one-day democratic exercize by any standard. There were 147 million registered voters with over 80 per cent turn out, electing 550 members of National Parliament (DPR), 128 regional representatives (DPD), and more than 14,000 members of 32 provincial and about 440 district Parliaments (DPRD) from 448,705 candidates. The two elections required almost 1 billion ballots paper and 100,000 tonnes of materials to be printed and distributed to 595,000 polling stations in a country with a distance from east to west equal with Dublin to Moscow, and north to south equal with Amsterdam to Rome. Not only has Indonesia advanced on the political front, but just as important, it has advanced on the road of economic reform with three major watersheds being reached. First, Indonesia has successfully graduated from the IMF Program and has been following its own reform blueprint as laid out in the Government's White Paper on Economic Policy Program. In addition, two of the three main institutional legacies of the crisis have now been closed down with their missions broadly accomplished. Namely, the Jakarta Initiative Task Force (JITF) which oversaw the working out of debt agreements between private creditors and debtors, and the Indonesia Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) which oversaw the recovery of bank assets and the sale of banks that had been taken over by the government. The remaining legacy of the crisis—the Blanket Guarantee—will be replaced in the near future with an Indonesian Deposit Insurance System (LPS). The draft bill of the LPS is expected to be approved by the Parliament in September this year.

President Megawati may have stabilized the economy, but foreign capital is hoping that the charismatic former general known as SBY will emerge as Indonesia's next president in runoff elections. Keri Geiger profiles Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, whose pledges to tackle corruption and lure foreign investment have put him ahead in polls.

Since 1991, Asiamoney has been finding out just which are the region's best managed companies. In this poll of polls, find out which ones have stood the test of some very tough times.

Personality counts, it seems, in the world of headhunting. When Ranjan Marwah left Executive Access, the firm lost its top spot. Asiamoney's poll of polls reveals the overall winner as four firms have jostled for the number one place.

Banks and finance companies are zeroing in on Indonesia's consumers. While it has risks, cashing in on the growing retail finance boom definitely has its rewards. Keri Geiger reports.

Find out which institutions are the region's winners, who has fallen off the pace and who has simply disappeared in Asiamoney's polls of polls.

The ripples from Asia's financial crisis are still being felt. As the region's economies collapsed, skeletons fell out of many corporate closets. But has anything changed? Bad habits are still rife and it seems that foreign investors' memories are short. Chris Leahy looks back over some of the region's major scandals and suggests that the seeds of future corporate disasters may already have been sown.

In an exclusive interrview with Asiamoney, Burhanuddin Abdullah, the governor of Bank Indonesia, discusses the concerns that observers have with Indonesia's banking sector.

Investment banks are constantly innovating their structured products offering, as companies wise up to risk management and demand better ways to enhance yields. Keri Geiger reports on the winners of Asiamoney's first ever Structured Products Poll and investigates the complex and highly profitable business that's exploding in Asia.

Can Taiwan's best companies be lured onto their home stockmarket? Will Taiwan's IT companies be forced to consolidate? Asiamoney brought together top investors, bankers and CFOs to discuss the issues confronting Taiwan's financial system and capital markets.

John Poon, Esprit CFO since 1999

The Asian financial crisis underlined the need for companies to get their FX strategy right and placed more pressure on the major banks to offer reliable FX solutions and hedging opportunities. But with clients becoming more and more agnostic to brands, as virtually identical e-commerce platforms proliferate, it makes the playing field more intense than ever.