Indonesia Is Still Dependent On The US, Starting From LPG To Software

SOE Minister Erick Thohir (Photo: Doc. VOI)

JAKARTA - Minister of State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN) Erick Thohir highlighted the tariff war carried by the President of the United States (US) Donald Trump. The reason is, the industrial ecosystem in Indonesia still depends on Uncle Sam's country.

"Because if we look at several ecosystems in our own country, we still have dependence on several parties, especially from America," he said during a working meeting with Commission VI of the Indonesian House of Representatives, in Jakarta, Tuesday, May 20.

Furthermore, Erick said one of them was the aviation industry. Even so, Erick emphasized that not only Indonesia, but other countries also rely on aircraft products from the US.

"For airplanes, there are only two players in today's world, namely Airbus and Boeing," he said.

In the energy sector, continued Erick, Indonesia still relies on imports from the US. One of them is Liquefied Petroleum Gas or LPG.

"If we look at the need for our LPG, there are also many from America, almost 70 percent," he said.

In addition, continued Erick, the technology ecosystem as well as Indonesia still relies on US products. One of them is for software or software.

"I think America is also still occupying software as Microsoft and others, we still depend," he said.

Despite Indonesia's dependence on US-made products, continued Erick, America has also made a number of offers that can be used as material for negotiations in trade cooperation between the two parties.

Erick said the US asked for the same treatment as domestic investors in terms of investment in the United States in the mineral sector.

"I think we have actually opened some investments in Vale companies, where we have investments from Ford Motor, there is also investment from Volkswagen, but yesterday it was still an investment from China, one of which," he said.

Erick assessed that this is proof that the policy requested by President Prabowo Subianto regarding continuity for downstreaming remains in the country.

"This is what we are guarding, downstreaming is in the country so that battery production can remain in the country," he said.