Airlangga Underlines Not Exporting Ore To America

Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto. (Photo: Maria Trisnawati/VOI)

Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto emphasized that Indonesia will only export commodities that have gone through the downstream process.

Airlangga's statement also denied that Indonesia's issue would open the tap for exports of raw commodities that had previously been stopped by the government.

According to him, Indonesia agreed on the cooperation of industrial products, namely critical mineral products that have gone through the production process. For this reason, he continued, until now there have been no restrictions on industrial commodity exports.

"We are talking about critical minerals as part of industrial commodities, so the format is not an ore, but as an industrial product," Airlangga said at a press conference in Jakarta, Thursday, July 24.

Airlangga also said that the Danantara Indonesia Investment Management Agency (BPI) also cooperated with the Development Finance Corporation (DFC) for investment financing, including investment in critical mineral fields.

"This means that Indonesia is open to investment from anywhere, including from the United States and that was also yesterday requested by the EU, where the EU also has access through companies owned by the French government, for example, such as Eramet," explained Airlangga.

The same thing was conveyed by the Secretary General of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (Sekjen Kementerian ESDM) Dadan Kusdiana who said Indonesia would not export raw ore ore to the United States (US).

In the US-Indonesian agreement letter, continued Dadan, the term used is industrial commodities. This means that the cooperation in question is related to industrial products, not raw minerals.

"There (in the agreement) what is meant is industrial commodities. The sentence is industrial commodities," he said when met at the Djakarta Theater, Jakarta, Thursday, July 24.

Furthermore, Dadan said, the mineral export policy still refers to the applicable laws and regulations.

Indonesia has now also banned the export of raw ore, so that cooperation with the US will only cover processing products.

Previously, it was reported that the United States and Indonesia agreed on a Framework in the Balik-Bali Trade Agreement (Agreement on Reciprocal Trade) to strengthen bilateral economic relations between the two countries.

In a statement, Trump said Indonesia would remove restrictions on exports of industrial commodities to the United States, including essential minerals.

Doc. Maria