Indonesia Develops New Renewable Energy Downstream In Africa

JAKARTA - The Indonesian government is developing the downstream of the new renewable energy sector in African countries to provide greater value for the economy.

"There is a lot of potential in Africa and also a memorandum of understanding (MoU) is also available," said Assistant Deputy for Maritime Security and Resilience of the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs and Investment Adriani Kusumawardani as reported by ANTARA, Monday, September 2.

He explained that downstreaming increases state revenue, such as the current experience intensified by the Indonesian government.

He revealed, for the processing of nickel natural resources in the country, state revenues increased to around 38 billion US dollars, or an increase of many times from initially just 1.3 billion US dollars when the policy of selling raw materials abroad.

The policy, he continued, also made Indonesia have a basis for developing derivative industries, namely batteries for electric vehicles and renewable energy.

"This policy can be implemented by African countries to ensure they can capture the value of more than mineral natural resources," he said.

In addition to encouraging the development of downstreaming in Africa, Indonesia also supports increased competition and efficiency, as well as innovation and technology transfer.

In the forum, a number of potential southern-south cooperation in various fields can be increased, such as agriculture, health, industry, investment and trade.

Meanwhile, the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted that the total value of Indonesia's cooperation with African countries at the second Indonesia-Africa Forum (IAF) in 2024 reached 3.5 billion US dollars, an increase compared to the implementation of the first event in 2018 which reached 568 million US dollars.

Some of the important achievements from the 2nd IAF include the signing of a number of MoUs and strategic cooperation agreements, namely the development of geothermal energy between PT PLN and Tanesco Tanzania.

Then the agreement regarding the cooperation in the transfer of health technology between Biofarma and the Ghana Atlantic Lifescience and the Letter of Intent (LOI) between PT Dirgantara Indonesia and AD Trade facilitated the purchase and maintenance of aircraft by Congo and Senegal.