JAKARTA - The Head of the Center for Macroeconomics and Finance of the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef) M Rizal Taufikurahman views that the realization of investment in the first semester of 2026 shows that Indonesia's investment attractiveness is still quite maintained amid global economic uncertainty.
Based on the report of the Ministry of Investment and Industrialization/BKPM, the realization of investment in the period has reached IDR 1,010.6 trillion or around 49.5 percent of this year's target.
"However, the challenge in the second semester is no longer to attract investment commitments, but to ensure that the investment is immediately realized into a productive project," said Rizal when contacted by ANTARA in Jakarta, Saturday.
Therefore, according to him, the government needs to accelerate the execution of projects through licensing simplification, regulatory certainty, acceleration of infrastructure development, and the resolution of various obstacles in the field.
"This means that investment is not only high in nominal terms, but also able to drive economic growth and increase national production capacity," he said.
Rizal views that Indonesia's investment climate still has a relatively good resilience because it is supported by the size of the domestic market, the downstream agenda, and the macroeconomic stability that remains maintained.
However, investors in the second half are expected to be more selective due to high global uncertainty, geopolitical tensions, and high funding costs.
This condition makes investments tend to flow into sectors that offer certainty of profit and high added value, such as mineral processing, manufacturing, digital economy, data centers, energy, and logistics.
"Thus, policy consistency is a key factor for Indonesia to remain competitive compared to other investment destination countries in the region," said Rizal.
Meanwhile, from the realization of investment in the first semester of 2026, it managed to absorb 1.44 million workers, an increase of 15 percent compared to the same period last year, based on records from the Ministry of Investment and Industrialization/BKPM.
Rizal views that this increase in labor absorption is a positive development, but it is not enough to conclude that the investment has been qualified.
"The success of investment is not only determined by the number of jobs created, but more importantly by productivity, wage levels, technology transfer, improvement of labor skills, and the magnitude of the added value generated," he said.
For this reason, according to Rizal, the orientation of investment policies needs to shift from merely pursuing the amount of realization to more productive, inclusive, and sustainable investments so that they can strengthen the competitiveness of national industries while improving people's welfare.
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