Skip to main content

US Companies Promise 2 Billion $ Investment In Indonesia


American companies this week made a commitment to invest more in Indonesia provided that the government can guarantee legal certainty and security.During a meeting with President Megawati Soekarnoputri 10 American companies, mainly oil and gas enterprises, made a commitment for new investment totaling US$2 billion, according to presidential economic adviser Frans Seda. Seda, however, declined to elaborate. Nonetheless, executives of Conoco Oil and Freeport Mc Moran, both with strong interests in Indonesia, expressed their intention to increase their investment in the country. Conoco senior vice president J. Michael Stinson said that his company, with interests in the West Natuna gas field in Riau, intended to join the bidding for 17 new oil and gas blocks offered by the government during the meeting.

Freeport chairman and chief executive officer James R. Moffet, said that the company had invested a total of $6 billion in its giant copper and gold mines in Irian Jaya alone and was prepared to invest more in Indonesia´s eastern-most province. Both Stinson and Moffet, however, spoke about the importance of the Indonesian government having stable and predictable regulations. They mentioned the complications involved in the implementation of the new autonomy law, tax regulations as well as labor laws and regulations. "Indonesia will be one of the best places (for companies) to put money if you have a stable and predictable tax environment, law respecting human resources and workers. Then it will be conducive for foreign investment," said Stinson. The government, Stinson added, had also to make sure that all bureaucratic processes were rational and if possible they be pooled under one roof to make it more convenient for investors to do business in the country. "We have to have all those things. Otherwise, investors will be reluctant to come to the country," he remarked. James R. Moffet also spoke about regional autonomy, especially the special autonomy bill for Irian Jaya currently being deliberated. Moffet, nevertheless, expressed Freeport´s readiness to work under the planned special autonomy law, that would give much of the revenue from mineral exploitation to the province. "The regional autonomy law is like other laws. We will work with it," Moffet said. Meanwhile, Texaco Inc. chairman Glenn F. Tilton, who also attended the meeting with the President, brought up the importance of bringing uniformity in investment regulations that seemed to be negated by the autonomy law. He suggested that the current drafting of the new investment bill focus on creating uniformity in investment, especially to deal with possible confusion in the implementation of the autonomy law. "We appreciate the efforts of the Indonesian government to bring uniformity for investment opportunity in Indonesia ... We will avail of what Indonesia has to offer," Tilton said after the meeting. ExxonMobil Oil Corp. executive vice president Harry J. Longwell highlighted the importance of security being guaranteed, especially in restive areas such as Aceh, its center of operations in Indonesia.

He noted that ExxonMobil suspended its operation for four months due to security reasons and it would take some time to resume full operations in Aceh. "We have secured the operation at this time and we have an ongoing understanding that security is the responsibility of the government and they are handling it," Longwell said after meeting Megawati. Speaking at the opening of the Houston Energy Dialog on Sunday, Megawati stressed once again the government´s commitment to protect foreign investment and at the same time underlined the importance of the need for companies to work with local people to improve their welfare. Megawati invited oil and gas companies to invest in Indonesia, promising a more stable and conducive investment climate under her administration. She noted that the House of Representatives had just passed the oil and gas bill into law, giving more room to private investors to play a greater role. "I am not here to make empty promises. But I can assure you of my determination ... What I can promise you is very modest: Do come to Indonesia and we will warmly welcome you," she ended her speech.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Nine of Indonesia’s 11 richest families have found shelter in tropical tax havens

Billionaires Among Thousands of Indonesians Found in Secret Offshore Documents  By Nicky Hager April 9, 2013, 8:15 pm Nine of Indonesia’s 11 richest families have found shelter in tropical tax havens, holding ownership of more than 190 offshore trusts and companies, secret records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists show. The nine families, worth an estimated $36 billion among them, are at the top of a wealthy class that dominates Indonesia’s politics and economy. Six were closely tied to the late dictator Suharto, who helped a special circle of Indonesians grow rich during his 31-year rule by granting economic fiefdoms to family and friends. The billionaires are among nearly 2,500 Indonesians found in the files of Singapore-headquart ered offshore services provider Portcullis TrustNet, which ICIJ has been analyzing and began reporting on last week. Although there is no evidence in the files of illegality by any of the ni...

Debate Islam in Indonesia

http://www.thejakar taglobe.com/ opinion/interloc utors-of- indonesian- islam/560447 Interlocutors of Indonesian Islam Ahmad Najib Burhani | December 08, 2012 A few months ago, the Japanese anthropologist Mitsuo Nakamura told me that studying Nahdlatul Ulama as an organization was beyond the imagination of any American scholar from the 1950s to the ’70s. But he is not the only academic to have noticed this. George McT. Kahin of Cornell University stated the same thing. Even NU-expert Martin van Bruinessen was not expecting to study NU as his primary focus when he came to Indonesia for the first time in the 1980s.   During the early decades of Indonesian independence, NU was relatively unorganized and its management was largely based on the authority of religious teachers ( kyai ). Of course there were a number of scholars who studied NU-affiliated religious schools ( pesantren ) and its kyai, but not NU as an organization.   Even though NU was one of the ...

is that true in Indonesia there freedom of religion?

The problems began shortly after Tajul Muluk, a Shiite cleric, opened a boarding school in 2004. The school, in a predominantly Sunni Muslim part of East Java, raised local tensions, and in 2006 it was attacked by thousands of villagers. When a mob set fire to the school and several homes last December, many Shiites saw it as just the latest episode in a simmering sectarian conflict — one that they say has been ignored by the police and exploited by Islamists purporting to preserve the purity of the Muslim faith.   Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, has long been considered a place where different religious and ethnic groups can live in harmony and where Islam can work with democracy.   But that perception has been repeatedly brought into question lately. In East Java, Sunni leaders are pushing the provincial government to adopt a regulation limiting the spread of Shiite Islam. It would prevent the country’s two major Shiite organizations from ...