Indonesia Invites Australia To Cooperate To Advance Electric Vehicle Industry

SOE Minister Erick Thohir (Photo: Mery Handayani/VOI)

The Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs and Investment (Kemenko Marves) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Australian Ministry of Industry and Science to collaborate to advance electric vehicles (EV) between Indonesia and Australia.

The signing of the MoU is in order to follow up on the commitments announced by the President of the Republic of Indonesia and the Prime Minister of the Australian Commonwealth at the Annual Leaders' Meeting to advance cooperation and collaboration in the electric vehicle industry.

Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Ad Interim Erick Thohir said this bilateral mechanism would facilitate mutually beneficial cooperation, as well as collaboration in mapping supply chains and the electric vehicle ecosystem.

Including, continued Erick, sharing best practices on social environmental standards, and governance (ESG), supporting knowledge transfer, facilitating new business-to-business partnerships and forming a joint steering committee to guide workflows and monitor collaboration results.

Indonesia and Australia not only have geopolitical closeness, but both of them also have abundant mineral resources, as well as opportunities to become key players in the global electric vehicle supply chain," he said in the signing of the MoU at the Ministry of SOEs, Jakarta, Thursday, November 23.

Furthermore, Erick said nickel and lithium are the two main minerals used in electric vehicle batteries.

Indonesia has developed its nickel downstream industry towards the electric vehicle ecosystem in the last 5 years. There have been 3 factories in Indonesia operating to produce mixed hydroxide precipitate, the basic ingredients for battery precursors. In addition, several battery manufacturing projects have also been planned to start in the next few years," said Erick.

Meanwhile, Erick said, Australia has 24 percent of the world's lithium reserves (second order after Chile). Australia even accounts for 43 percent of global lithium extraction by 2022.

Furthermore, Erick explained that Australia can take advantage of this abundant lithium resource by collaborating with Indonesia, which has developed its nickel industry in building a new axis for the electric vehicle battery ecosystem, as well as establishing alliances.

"With the Australian Government's commitment to assign representatives from the Department of Industry, Science and Resources (DISR) and the Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water (DCCEEW) to the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, we believe this Memorandum of Understanding can be a real milestone for achieving this shared ambition," concluded Erick.