The Indonesian government is urging Muslim countries to invest in Indonesia's downstream industries. Over the past five years, investments from Muslim countries have only accounted for 5.5% of the total Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into Indonesia. The call was made by Bahlil Lahadalia, the Minister of Investment and Head of the Indonesia Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM), during his keynote speech at the Annual Meetings of the Islamic Development Bank Group (IsDB) in Jeddah. Bahlil highlighted that despite being the world's largest Muslim country, Indonesia has been primarily receiving investments from non-Muslim countries. He emphasized Indonesia's plans to develop an electric vehicle battery ecosystem and encouraged Muslim countries to participate in this endeavor.
Indonesia aims to become a major player in the electric vehicle battery industry and is actively promoting downstream activities to achieve this goal. Bahlil offered Muslim countries the opportunity to be part of Indonesia's masterplan for investment management, which focuses on downstream activities in eight strategic commodities sectors with a potential value of $545.3 billion. The Indonesian government's investment policy under President Jokowi's leadership prioritizes downstream activities that are oriented towards green energy and green industry. The country has already implemented export bans on certain raw commodities such as nickel, and similar measures are planned for tin and bauxite. These export restrictions demonstrate Indonesia's commitment to realizing industrial downstreaming. Bahlil emphasized that the shift towards downstream activities has significantly increased Indonesia's revenue, citing the example of nickel where income rose from $3.3 billion to $30 billion after the implementation of downstreaming initiatives.
