Despite improvement in Indonesia’s ranking in Ease of Doing Business (EODB), investment competitiveness, and the success in integrating permits through Online Single Submission (OSS), the Government still needs to make some improvements, according to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo. “It’s not enough and that is the fact. I think we also must accelerate the process since other competitors also compete in providing the best investment attraction,” President Jokowi said in his introductory remarks during a Limited Meeting on the Improvement of Investment Ecosystem, at the Presidential Office, Jakarta, Wednesday (11/9).
President Jokowi stated that 33 Chinese manufacturers have relocated from China, but no manufactures are relocated to Indonesia. He added that the Government must pay attention to this condition. In addition, the President admitted that he often received complaints from investors who had hard times due to complicated regulations, permits, and laws.
“The regulations also changed a lot from time to time and cannot be predicted because ministries exercise their discretions,” he said adding that the condition contributes negatively to the image of Indonesia since other countries offer faster permitting process and more incentives than our country.
The President went on to say that the Government is resolving the issue at central government level, and it will be carried on to provinces, regencies, and cities levels as well. Therefore, he called for comprehensive improvements for the investment ecosystem, ranging from regulations, permits, tax incentives, land issues, to employment and security.
Also on that occasion, the Head of State reminded all people attending the limited meeting that reforms are the key to face global economy slowdown. He also affirmed that Indonesia can address economic recession which is predicted to occur in the future as long as the Government can resolve that aforementioned issues.
In the other parts of his remarks, President Jokowi said that the Government will hold a limited meeting regularly every other day to discuss the Improvement of Investment Ecosystem until it produces concrete decisions to improve the ecosystem.
In a limited meeting last week, the President asserted that he has ordered all ministries, particularly that overseeing economic matters to list regulations considered hampering investment in general and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in particular. Moreover, the President also called on ministries overseeing investment matters to list foreign companies that have affirmed their commitments to invest in Indonesia but are still facing several problems in the implementation on the ground. “I want the problems to be identified. Then, we can conduct debottlenecking process to uproot the problems,” the President concluded.