Inaugurating Freeport Smelter, Jokowi: This Is A Tough Job For 10 Years As President

President Joko Widodo (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) revealed that during his 10 years of government he had a difficult and tiring job.

The tiring work, he said, was to invite mining companies to build smelters.

Jokowi tells the story of the difficulty of osciating between himself and Freeport boss Richard Adkerson regarding the construction of a smelter in Gresik.

"That is still very tough in negotiations because I know this investment is not small. Rp56 trillion is not small money. The money is very big so I am aware that the company must calculate," he said in his remarks at the inauguration of Freeport smelter production in Gresik, Monday, September 23.

After tough negotiations, the construction of the smelter began in 2018 which started from land preparation to groundbreaking and was inaugurated after 30 months of construction.

Jokowi said, with an investment of IDR 56 trillion, this smelter was able to process 1.7 million tons of copper concentrate brought from the Freeport mine in Papua to Gresik.

"The result is 900,000 tons of copper cathodes. Approximately 50 tons of gold and 210 tons of silver. The amount is not small," said Jokowi.

Seeing this magnitude, Jokowi said that PTFI could involve many MSMEs ranging from catering to subcontractors from everything related to smelters in Gresik.

Jokowi hopes that this smelter can produce derivative industries around PTFI.

"There are already things that have started to produce copper foils. Maybe the cable factories and others will follow into our country," said Jokowi.