DEN Chairman Acknowledges that the Hilirisasi is Not Fair, Local Entrepreneurs are Still Spectators

Illustration of a truck in a mine. (Pexels).

JAKARTA - Chairman of the National Economic Council (DEN) Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan admitted that downstreaming has not fully provided fair benefits to producing areas. Local entrepreneurs are still many who are only spectators in their own region.

Luhut conveyed this when attending the 50th anniversary of the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Bahlil Lahadalia as well as the launch of the book Ten Real Works for the State at the Jakarta Theater, Friday, August 7.

According to Luhut, downstream processing has indeed boosted exports of nickel products and their derivatives. Areas such as Morowali and Central Halmahera are also growing rapidly and are included in the supply chain of the world industry.

However, according to Luhut, the work is not yet complete.

"The part for the producing area is not fair. Many local entrepreneurs are still spectators in their own homes," said Luhut.

He also touched on environmental and occupational safety issues in the downstream industrial area.

"There are environmental issues, there are safety issues that take lives," he said.

Luhut said that Bahlil wrote about this issue in his book. He appreciated Bahlil's courage to criticize the work that he had been involved in.

"Criticizing others is easy. Criticizing one's own work in a book printed in one's own name, that's rare," he said.

Luhut said the policy of banning nickel ore exports in the early days also faced great pressure. Indonesia was criticized, sued to the World Trade Organization or WTO, and was considered incapable of carrying out downstream processing.

According to Luhut, the situation then changed. The party who used to doubt Indonesia is now coming to invest.

"We were ridiculed, we were pressured from various directions, we were sued to the WTO, and many said Indonesia would not be able to," said Luhut.

However, Luhut emphasized that the achievement of downstream processing was not enough to be measured only by increasing exports or the growth of industrial areas.

He said that the benefits of downstream processing should be felt more by the regions and communities around the industry. National and regional entrepreneurs also need to have room to move up in the value chain.

"National entrepreneurs, regional entrepreneurs must rise in the value chain," he said.