RI Losing Nickel's Lawsuit At WTO, Jokowi: There Used To Be Paksa And Paksa Plant Work, This Modern Age Comes Forced Exports

President Jokowi at The Ritz-Carlton (Photo: BPMI Setpres/Rusman)

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) mentioned the existence of forced exports after a lawsuit from the European Union to Indonesia at the World Trade Organization (WTO) regarding the government's ban on exports of nickel ore since 2020.

"In the VOC era, during the compensity era there was such a thing as forced labor, there was such a thing as forced cultivation. This modern era emerged again, forced exports," said President Jokowi at the Kompas100 CEO Forum at the State Palace, Jakarta, Friday, December 2, quoted from Antara.

The President emphasized that export-forbidden nickel ore is Indonesia's natural wealth. Therefore, he questioned why the Indonesian government's authority to natural wealth was sued.

"Forced export. We are forced to export. If this is our item," he said.

Indonesia, said Jokowi, had indeed been decided to lose the lawsuit at the WTO in October 2022. However, that is only the process of resolving the dispute in the first phase. The President emphasized that he would appeal the decision.

"Because this story is not finished yet if we stop. Yes, the big ecosystem that we dream of will not appear," said the President.

He explained that the government's ban on the export of nickel ore since 2020 is aimed at encouraging the process of downstreaming nickel which can create derivative products for the production of electric vehicle batteries.

The government wants to form an electric vehicle ecosystem so that nickel derivative products are needed as raw materials. In addition, downstream mining goods such as nickel, will create many jobs and increase export value.

Ecosystems are like chips, like the digital component earlier. Big ecosystem, because once again we have numbers, our reservoir (nickel reserves) is number one. Lead number two, bauxite number six, copper number seven in the world. Have everything. Building an electric vehicle (electric vehicle) ecosystem, we only lack lithium," said President Jokowi.