Indonesia to push for more focus in key industry areas

0

HOT INVESTMENT SECTORS: Another segment with high investment opportunity is the bauxite sector for both private sector and infrastructure investments, particularly in the upstream division.

KUCHING: In line with its aim to push Indonesia’s economic growth further, several key investment areas have been outlined in the country’s Masterplan for the Acceleration and Expansion of Indonesia Economic Development (MP3EI) created in May last year.

The Committee for Acceleration and Expansion of Indonesia’s Economic Development’s (KP3EI) secretariat and head of International Cooperation Division, Eddy Satriya, said there were six development corridors which formed the backbone of the MP3EI.

“The sic economic corridors – Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Bali-Nusa Tenggara and Papua-Maluku – has its own themes of focus,” he said during the seminar entitled ‘Identifying opportunities in the Indonesian market’ here yesterday.

“Indonesia is filled with rich natural resources, most of them still intact to be processed into higher value-added products,” he added in his remarks.

In each economic corridor, 22 main activities in eight main programmes of MP3EI had been identified, he noted.

Satriya said Malaysia’s Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) was a success story which encouraged Indonesia for its MP3EI.

Breaking down into sectors, Satriya believed there was huge potential in the palm oil industry in Indonesia, with a consumption growth of more than seven per cent in terms of cumulated annual growth rate (CAGR).

It was noted that the demand for palm oil would likely remain strong.

The availability of land in Indonesia, coupled with recent years of high seed sales, record energy prices and high vegetable oil prices were factors that would result in Indonesia continuing to lead the world in palm oil production for years to come.

Another segment with high investment opportunity was the bauxite sector for both private sector and infrastructure investments, particularly in the upstream division.

Currently, production capacity for bauxite processing in Indonesia was only about two per cent of total bauxite potential in the whole country.

Meanwhile, Indonesia also offered investment chances in nickel production as current production capacities for nickel processing were only 462,000 tonnes out of 3.9 million tonnes of total nickel potential in the country.

The coal industry could stand to gain from more investment as well, with current annual coal production at 1.5 per cent of Indonesia’s coal-proven reserves.

In particular, investment in infrastructure was required to support the coal industry.