Indonesia still favored by foreign investors
Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow to Indonesia has continued to rise, along with direct investment in South-East Asia, despite the slowdown in economic growth, says an UN report.
The World Investment Report 2015 revealed that FDI inflows to Indonesia rose by 20 percent to US$23 billion in 2014, while the combined direct investment in the region saw a rise of 5 percent to $133 billion.
"Indonesia is still more attractive compared to the other neighboring countries such as Vietnam and Thailand," Pratito Soeharyo, Director for Business Empowerment for the Indonesia Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM), told the press in Central Jakarta on Wednesday.
Vietnam, an important location for low-cost production by foreign companies, saw its direct investment inflows increase 3 percent to $9.2 billion in 2014.
The BKPM has expressed its plan to achieve its investment target at Rp 519.5 trillion this year, an increase of around 14 percent as compared to the value recorded in the previous year. The realization investments in the first quarter hit Rp 124.6 trillion, a 16.9 percent increase from last year’s Rp 106.6 trillion in the same period.
However, investment in Indonesia is still hampered by business regulation and licensing, according to Shinta Widjaja Kamdani, chairwoman for Indonesia Employers Association
Indonesia still favored by foreign investors | The Jakarta Post
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Companies called to use rupiah for transactions
Bank Indonesia (BI) says it is hoped that all companies in Indonesia can use rupiah for all daily transactions starting from July 1.
“In the short term, there might be some obstacles to overcome because the companies will have to convert their US dollars into rupiah before making payments and this demands additional costs,” the central bank’s assistant director of money management department, Agustinus Fajar Setiawan, said as quoted by Antara in Semarang on Wednesday.
However, he said, BI hoped that this would not be used as an excuse by companies to avoid using rupiah for transactions because this regulation must be upheld. There would be tough sanctions for any company which violated the rule, starting from warning letters to prohibiting them from attending finance service traffic.
“If starting from July 1 there are companies that still carry out non-cash transactions using US dollars, we will impose sanctions on them,” said Agustinus.
“First, we give them a written warning. Second, we will order them to pay fines amounting to 1 percent of the total transactions at a minimum and Rp 1 billion (US$75,000) at a maximum,” he said.
As a final sanction, they would be prohibited attending finance service traffic and prohibited from making transactions using banking services, he added.
Agustinus said BI hoped that banking transactions in US dollars, which now had reached between $6.5 billion - $7.1 billion per month, could be reduced in stages.
Companies called to use rupiah for transactions | The Jakarta Post
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Indonesia mulls over incentives to boost national shipping dock industry
Indonesia's Investment Coordination Agency (BKPM) mulled to provide tax allowance incentive for foreign firms planning to invest in the country's shipping dock industry, saying that the policy was related to President Joko Widodo's plan to stop acquisition of ships from foreign countries.
According to BKPM Chairman Franky Sibarani,
Indonesia has received pledges of five foreign shipping firms from China, South Korea, Japan and Australia to invest in national shipping industry with a total value of 9.34 billion U.S. Dollars.
The pledges were received from October last year to May this year, Franky said.
"The moratorium policy has a great consequence as there were more than 5,000 foreign ships operating in Indonesia at present. This would be the right time to fill the domestic ship demands for national producers," Franky said here on Wednesday.
Citing results of a survey on shipping dock industry in the region carried out by a Japanese agency, he said that Indonesia's shipping dock industry was highly competitive compared to those operating in the region.
Indonesia's high competitiveness in the industry lies in its labor cost, land leasing, procurement and electricity cost advantages compared to those in Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, Franky cited the results of the survey.
He said that the tax allowances would be provided for the production of various ships including ferry ships, tankers, sailed ships and fishing boats using steel, fiber glass and woods.
"We believe that the tax allowance and moratorium policy would make Indonesia an interesting place for shipping investors to invest their business here," he said.
Franky said the production of national shipping dock takes only 40 percent of their actual production capacity due to massive orders on foreign ships to operate in national waters.
The tax allowance policy was also expected to boost up national ship production which now only slightly supplies 0.3 percent to global ship market at the moment, he added.
He furthermore said that the tax allowance was also eventually expected to increase adoption of domestic components in the industry which now only uses 30 percent for their productions with the larger portion of 70 percent were now still imported from foreign countries.
Indonesia has prepared Tanngamus in Lampung province and Lamongan in East Java province to accommodate shipping dock yard industry areas, but investors are eyeing areas in Gresik, East Java, Bitung in North Sulawesi and Makassar in South Sulawesi province as their investment sites.
President Widodo said on Monday that he would issue a decree that bans state-run firms to import ships from foreign countries as he believes that national shipping docks were capable to supply the needs of ship for domestic market.
Indonesia mulls over incentives to boost national shipping dock industry - Xinhua | English.news.cn