Indonesia Is Gifted By God To Have A Big Mine, President Jokowi: We Shouldn't Just Be Diggers

President of the Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo. (Photo: Doc. Setkab)

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) emphasized the importance of downstreaming the mining industry. He emphasized that by processing mining products domestically, Indonesia could also enjoy added value, not other countries. Therefore, Jokowi wants Indonesia not only to become a mining digger.

"What does that mean, if it's a mine, we shouldn't be just diggers," he said to the participants of PPSA XXIII and PPRA LXII in 2021, Lemhannas RI, quoted from the Setpres YouTube, Wednesday, October 13.

Therefore, Jokowi said, Indonesia must be able to process its own mining products. So that the export of raw materials or raw materials that have no value is no longer carried out.

"The gift that God has given us is truly extraordinary, but if we only (become) diggers, then we send them outside, they build a smelter there, then turn it into semi-finished goods or finished goods, then return to here we buy. This is what little by little, step by step we must begin to eliminate, "he said.

Jokowi said, the same applies to the use of other natural resources such as agriculture, plantations, forestry, to fisheries.

Furthermore, Jokowi also wants the results of natural resources to be processed domestically. So as to provide maximum added value for the national interest.

"When we got the timber boom, it was only slashing but no woodworking or furniture industry," he said.

Jokowi also hopes that Indonesia can produce high value-added products as a result of the combination of the use of natural wealth with wisdom and technology that preserves it.

Previously, Jokowi said that so far copper has been mined from Indonesia, but unfortunately most of the copper concentrate is still being processed abroad, such as in Spain and Japan. In fact, Indonesia is the owner of the seventh largest copper reserves in the world, but unfortunately the added value is enjoyed by other countries.

"Don't let us have mines, concentrates, downstream smelters in other countries, in Spain, Japan, the added value that they enjoy," he said at the groundbreaking event for the construction of the PT Freeport Indonesia smelter, in the Gresik Special Economic Zone, East Java, Tuesday, 12 September.

With the reason to get this multifold added value and the greatest prosperity of the Indonesian people, Jokowi said his party asked PT Freeport Indonesia to build a copper smelter in the Gresik SEZ, East Java.

"Therefore, the government considers this a strategic policy related to the copper mining industry after we control 51 percent of Freeport's shares, and at that time we encourage Freeport to build a smelter domestically. Because we want added value here," he explained.

For your information, the smelter processing copper concentrate into copper cathode owned by PT Freeport Indonesia has a capacity of 1.7 million tons of copper concentrate with a product of 600 thousand tons of copper cathode. This smelter is also capable of producing an average of 35 tons of gold per year.