Sumedang: Minister of Investment/Head of the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) Bahlil Lahadalia said that downstreaming is one of the ways to create a source of state income to realize the goal of a Golden Indonesia in 2045.
"So when I entered the government, President Jokowi immediately ordered us to immediately think of measurable comprehensive steps to realize investment in the downstream sector," Bahlil said in a public lecture at the Institute of Domestic Government (IPDN) in Sumedang, West Java, Thursday, July 11, 2024.
Bahlil said the creation of added value is important to increase state revenues. Prior to downstreaming, nickel exports in 2017 only reached USD3.3 billion.
Meanwhile, in 2023 or after downstreaming is implemented, the figure increases significantly to USD33.8 billion. This figure only comes from one to two nickel derivatives, not including Electric Vehicle (EV) batteries and electric cars.
"In 2023, our export value from nickel downstreaming will reach USD33.8 billion. Up 10 times in just four to five years," he said.
Investors must cooperate with MSMEs
Furthermore, he revealed, his party has made a design for downstreaming both in the oil and gas sector, minerals and coal, plantations, fisheries, forestry and agriculture.
"We create added value here, so as to create jobs. If jobs are created, downstreaming is built, state revenues rise, wages rise, salaries for civil servants also rise," Bahlil said.
Therefore, Bahlil said, his party has encouraged that every investment that enters the region must collaborate with entrepreneurs and MSMEs in the region.
"Regional people must be masters in their own country, not spectators. Please guide your friends who have just finished school to become entrepreneurs so that they can develop the regions and their economy can be controlled by themselves," Bahlil said.
Meanwhile, IPDN Rector Hadi Prabowo revealed that downstreaming is a sustainable economic transformation process based on high value-added commodities to enter a more complex economic structure.
"Downstreaming is expected to increase productivity, added value, so that we can be able to increase the value of the industrial supply chain then we can protect our commodities from price fluctuations then we can reach the top of the industrial tree and of course support the strength of the domestic economy," said Hadi.
(SOURCE)