Jakarta. President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo launched Monday a copper smelter belonging to mining giant Amman Mineral Internasional in West Sumbawa, West Nusa Tenggara. 

The project, which includes a precious metal refinery, is an investment worth Rp 21 trillion (approximately $1.4 billion). The facility became the country’s first-ever copper smelter belonging to Indonesian businessmen, the government claimed.

According to Jokowi, Amman’s copper smelter marks a major step in Indonesia’s steadfast resource nationalism, in which the country favors domestically processing its abundant minerals to grow its economy. 

“We want the world to rely on Indonesia for copper products, be it cathode sheet, copper foil, or cables. Anything that we can produce at home. We will no longer export raw materials,” Jokowi said during the plant’s inauguration ceremony.

Jokowi is hoping that the smelter can help the Indonesian economy depend less on domestic consumption. More than half of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) comes from domestic consumption.

The president added: “Domestic consumption represents 56 percent of our GDP. We need to change this. … We are seeking to be an industrialized, advanced economy by processing our own resources so we can turn our GDP growth to rely more on production rather than consumption.”

The newly established smelter, which sits on a 272-hectare land, will produce its first copper cathode by end-2024. The Amman Mineral smelter boasts an annual capacity of 900,000 tons of copper concentrates. It will produce 220,000 tons of copper cathode, 18 tons of gold, 55 tons of silver, and 850,000 tons of sulfuric acid byproducts, according to Jokowi. 

A 2024 US Geological Survey report shows that Indonesia’s copper reserves stand at 24 million metric tons. Chile has the world’s largest copper reserves (190 million metric tons), seconded by Peru (120 million metric tons). Indonesia’s mines produced an estimated 840,000 metric tons of copper with its refinery production reaching 200,000 metric tons last year.

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