"At times, you can tell a country by the company it keeps," says Martin Hutchinson, noting that Indonesia has announced plans to leave OPEC.

The contributing editor of The Money Map Report explains, "The country has shown that it would rather join with the 'good guys'. For emerging market investors, that choice is a significant one." Here, he looks at his top plays on the region.

"That decision to leave OPEC may not seem very significant, but consider it this way: If you were Indonesia, which countries would you rather have as your buddies? Nigeria, Venezuela and Angola?

"Or  hard-working and diligent neighbors such as Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand? Not to mention two of the largest growth economies in the world: India and China?

"To be fair, Indonesia’s decision wasn’t just based on a snobbish desire to mingle with a classier set of countries. For one thing, the country is no longer self-sufficient from a petroleum standpoint, and it wants lower - not higher - oil prices.

"Since Indonesia doesn’t agree with OPEC’s prime objective, and doesn’t approve of OPEC’s typical state-owned kleptocracy as a way of conducting business, it’s not surprising it decided to leave.

"That’s not to say that Indonesia has reached free-market perfection. For one thing, it remains astonishingly corrupt - ranked 143rd on Transparency International’s 2007 Corruption Perceptions Index, close to the makes Nigeria and Myanmar such charming places in which to do business.

"The corruption dates back to the 32-year rule (1966 to 1998) of Indonesian strongman Suharto, who modernized the economy but used his position to grab billions of dollars for himself and his family and was forced out of office in an economic collapse. He died early this year.

"Nevertheless, in the last decade, Indonesia has moved a long way towards being a functioning democracy. The economy has grown at around 5% per capita, while privatizations have taken place.

"Public spending has been kept under control and, most importantly, Indonesia has used these years of easy money and high commodity prices to pay down debt. Its international debt is now only 35% of its gross domestic product, a level it should easily be able to live with without major crises.

"In summary, Indonesia has moved from a commodity exporter to a true emerging market, and deserves the attention of investors accordingly.

"There are only two Indonesian companies with full ADR listings, both of them in the telecom sector. Indonesia’s satellite telephone company PT Indosat Tbk (NYSE: IIT) operates cell-phone and long-distance services, and is  trading at a p/e of 15 on trailing earnings. It has a dividend yield of 4%.

"Indonesia’s fixed-line telephone company, PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (NYSE: TLK) is trading at a trailing P/E of 14, and features a dividend yield of 3.6%. It offers fixed-line and cell-phone services, and is the country’s traditional telephone provider, founded in 1884.

"With the two ratings so close, I would tend to go for the satellite service PT Indosat Tbk, since Indonesia is a large and enormously complex archipelago, with shaky infrastructure.

"Meanwhile, the easiest way for a U.S. individual investor to invest in Indonesia is through the closed-end Indonesia Fund (NYSE: IF).

"The fund is run by Credit Suisse Group AG, is rather small at only $93 million in assets, but has the advantage of selling at a 9% discount to net asset value, with an expense ratio of 1.55%. It has returned 38% per annum over the last five years. But there would appear to be more to go for."