Foreign Companies Insinuated By Indonesian Officials: Selling Doang In Indonesia, Opening Offices Not

Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The Coordinating Ministry (Kemenko) for the Economy stated that in the last 2 decades, Indonesia's digital economy has been able to grow 2 times rapidly and is currently the largest in the ASEAN Region. The value of the digital economy is also estimated to be able to increase to 133 billion US dollars by 2025.

Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto said that the government continues to welcome the presence of global technology companies in the country. However, according to the President's direction, Indonesia is not only a consumer, but also a competitive producer and player.

"The government hopes that technology companies that invest can also open research centers, train and improve human resources, increase the empowerment of MSMEs and support the digital transformation agenda," he said in a written statement, Tuesday, September 26.

According to Airlangga, one of the directions in which development is able to become a major player in the digital economy sector that excels, is similar to the downstreaming of other sectors.

"The government continues to invite the presence of technology companies, please come and innovate in Indonesia, but not just for selling, especially, there are those who take advantage of economic transactions and data transactions but do not have an office. With a market potential of Indonesia, regional headquarters should be able to be carried out in Indonesia, not in other countries," he said.

On this occasion, Airlangga also expressed President Jokowi's appreciation for the rapidly growing Amazon Web Services in Indonesia by launching the AWS Asia Pacific Regional Data Center in Jakarta, which is the second largest data center in Southeast Asia after Singapore.

He said, the development of technology infrastructure, especially cloud computing which is also carried out by AWS, is considered capable of accelerating the progress of the digital economy, encouraging the birth of more new businesses, encouraging innovation and technology development, and attracting more funding to enter start-up companies.

"Mr. President encourages cloud technology that is increasingly affordable by all, provides special schemes for MSMEs, for startups that have just been established, and to accelerate digital downstreaming," said Coordinating Minister Airlangga.