JakartaPost-Jan 25, 2023
Indonesia has exceeded its target for realized investment in four consecutive years as the mining sector in conjunction with the development of downstream industries attracted vastly greater funding last year. Capital injections in the real sector increased by 34 percent to Rp 1.207 quadrillion (US$80.3 billion) last year, surpassing by Rp 7 trillion a target proclaimed by the President. The Investment Ministry report does not include investment in the financial sector, the oil and gas sector nor in micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). The National Development Planning Ministry had an investment target of Rp 960 trillion for 2022, but President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo raised the bar to Rp 1.2 quadrillion, telling his officials to accelerate Indonesia’s development so as to achieve advanced economy status by 2045. Jokowi expects the country’s GDP growth to remain above 5 percent every year, which is deemed a prerequisite to reach the 2045 goal. “Many people were pessimistic back then […] but now, this is the largest full-year investment ever recorded,” Investment Minister Bahlil Lahadalia told reporters on Tuesday. The ministry touted its success in building industries to not only extract the country’s natural resources but also add value to them, as the top two sectors drawing investment last year underpinned each other’s growth. The lion’s share of investment, namely Rp 171.2 trillion, went to the base-metals industry last year, with the annual rise of 45 percent being a testament to the Jokowi administration’s push for downstream development. The mining industry as the upstream component of the same minerals ecosystem, meanwhile, attracted Rp 136.4 trillion from investors, with a massive annual increase of 67 percent catapulting it from fifth place to second place. “Base metals and mining now go hand-in-hand, because one of them is the processing industry while the other is the one that provides the raw materials,” Bahlil noted. Singapore remained the largest source of foreign direct investment last year with an equivalent of US$13.3 billion worth of funds coming in from the city-state, up 41 percent, although Bahlil reasserted that much of that was “Indonesian money”. Read more: https://www.thejakartapost.com/paper/2023/01/25/2022-investment-exceeds-target-as-mining-sector-roars.html.
