Stop Exporting Ore Bauxite Starting June 2023, The Government Must Pay Attention To These 7 Things

Capture the screen of the Indonesian Publish National Coordinator What You Pay (PWYP) Aryanto Nugroho. (Photo: VOI/Theresia Agatha)

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) officially announced the ban on raw mineral exports in the form of bauxite ore in June 2023. Export bans are carried out so that bauxite mining companies develop downstreaming in the country.

Nevertheless, it is considered that it will cause new problems, namely related to the increasing processing and purification facilities (smelters) of bauxite processing going forward. Indonesian Publish National Coordinator What You Pay (PWYP) Aryanto Nugroho said, there are several things that the government needs to pay attention to in this regard. "First, what the government needs to do is the roadmap of the bauxite industry from upstream to downstream must be clarified, of course, those who adopt the principle of inclusive and sustainable development must be in line with the target of adapting climate change," Aryanto said in the Webinar on the Transition Energy with Justice in the Mineral Value Chain Policy in Indonesia online, Wednesday, December 21. Second, Aryanto said, the government must be committed to its policies and regulations, so that in the future there will be no more relaxation-relaxation." (The government) must strengthen coordination between the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, the Ministry of Industry regarding the development of its smelters, "he added. Then, Aryanto also appealed to the government to be able to take steps related to risk-risk mitigation from the results of the WTO lawsuit. "The government must carry out strengthening and supervision in the smelter industry, including monitoring and law enforcement over the risk of illegal mining and illegal exports," he said. with this biaxite ban, Aryanto said, the government is expected to be able to implement fair fiscal policies in its downstream industry, thus encouraging energy renewable acceleration. "Lastly, ESG must begin to be introduced and exercise in the bauxite industry because this is one of the results of the G20," he added.

For your information, the ban on the export of bauxite in June 2023 is actually not a new issue. This is because it has been included in Law Number 3 of 2020 concerning Mineral and Coal Mining (Minerba), which states that the downstream bauxite must be implemented three years after the Minerba Law is issued. However, due to a number of relaxations carried out by the government since 2017, the decision to ban the export of raw minerals in the form of bauxite ore in June 2023 was announced by President Joko Widodo today.