Tasks For Bahlil Lahadalia New Investment Minister: Preparing Breakthroughs Toward A Golden Indonesia

Investment Minister Bahlil Lahadalia (Photo: Twitter @KemensetnegRI)

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo has officially inaugurated Bahlil Lahadalia as Minister of Investment at the State Palace, Wednesday afternoon, April 28. Bahlil graduated from the Head of the Investment Coordinating Board to become a minister.

As an investment minister in the new ministry, of course, Bahlil has a myriad of tasks. Can Bahlil hold the position until the end of the period expires?

Chairman of the Madani National Investors Association, Zulfikar Hamonangan, gave several notes that are still homework for Bahlil.

According to him, currently, the government needs a budget to reduce the cost burden of the state budget. Through the investment ministry, it is hoped that the number of investors in Indonesia can grow.

"Hopefully as an Investment Management Institution can be in line and build a working concept that is in line with the national development target", Zulfikar said in his statement, Wednesday, April 28, 2021.

Furthermore, he assessed that investment growth is not only aimed at the State Budget but also includes cooperation between the private sector and the community. Then there is also a need for coaching and capital for MSMEs so they can get facilities from investment.

"Because there are many MSME products that should be able to be marketed at the foreign level, they only need capital to promote MSME business activities in Indonesia", he said.

Zulfikar continued that the main target is not only to invest locally, but the investment can develop the climate and atmosphere into sustainable investment. So that many parties are interested in Indonesian products to be marketed at the international level.

"So this matter also needs to be considered by the investment ministry in the future to prepare maximum breakthroughs in achieving the target towards a golden Indonesia", he said.

PDIP politician Darmadi Durianto assessed that the figure of the investment minister must be able to solve all problems related to the economy, especially in the current pandemic situation. In his version, the investment minister is obliged to boost economic growth through an increase in people's purchasing power.

"First, of course, you have to understand the situation that this pandemic has a lot of decreasing consumer purchasing power. So how to increase consumer purchasing power is an important point because it is the biggest contribution from that. As long as public consumption has not increased, economic growth will not also increase", Darmadi said to VOI, Wednesday, April 28.

Regarding investment, he continued, of course, someone who can coordinate all ministries and agencies is very much needed. This is because the sectoral ego rate in both the regions and the center is still quite high. For example, ministries and agencies do not want to coordinate.

"Well, the investment minister's ability to coordinate is needed. Besides knowing that the situation is very difficult, he also has to be agile in moving around, elastic-like that. So he can't just sit around. No investment minister (only, ed) can't do that", explained this member of the House of Representatives Commission VI.

As a partner of the Ministry of Investment, Commission VI of the House of Representatives appealed to the investment minister to play an expert role in finding foreign investors and safeguarding investments that have entered the country.

"Investments from foreigners, for example, have entered the country, then investors have put their funds here. It must be maintained. Often there are many problems in the process, sometimes from left to right. Here, an investment minister must be skilled at solving these problems", he stressed. Darmadi.

"So from the outside he has to pull inward, inside he has to clean up. So that after entering the investment fund, don't continue to be guaranteed, it is considered successful, no! The size must be inside and out. So inside he has to attract qualified investments but once inside he must resolving the existing problems. This is the duty of the investment minister, "the legislator for the electoral district of DKI Jakarta III continued.

So, he continued, the investment could increase and could create jobs, reduce unemployment and increase economic growth. This is because said Darmadi, the current investment contribution is 31 percent to economic growth.

Darmadi also questioned how the strategy of the investment minister who will be inaugurated to realize President Jokowi's wishes regarding the investment target of more than IDR 900 trillion in 2021. Because, as long as Bahlil Lahadalia served as head of the Investment Coordinating Board, synergies with other institutions were considered difficult.

"He invested for more than IDR 800 trillion, but Mr. Jokowi asked for IDR 1,000 trillion in 2021, this is the question of what strategy can be carried out? Because I see that investors are entering but in that coordination between institutions is difficult", said Darmadi.

With this investment ministry, Darmadi added, it is hoped that it will be upgraded to third class. This means that the sharpening and synchronization of the program can be done by the investment minister because he has graduated.

"So we hope that it can be more effective and efficient to attract investment and manage investment in this country which has many problems", said Darmadi Durianto.