Jakarta. The $3.9 billion Cilegon plant belonging to South Korean chemical giant Lotte Chemical’s local arm is set to begin commercial operations later this year.

Senior minister Airlangga Hartarto is currently in Gyeongju as part of President Prabowo Subianto’s entourage to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) talks.

A day prior to the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting, Airlangga met with some South Korean investors, including Lotte Chemical’s boss Lee Young-jun. The company is currently working on the so-called Lotte Chemical Indonesia New Ethylene (LINE) project in the Banten industrial city of Cilegon.

According to Airlangga, the budget-heavy production facility will enter commercial operations in mid-Q4 2025. Its opening ceremony is slated for Nov. 6, although Airlangga did not say whether Prabowo would be the one to kick off the launch.

“We appreciate Lotte Chemical’s commitment to the timely execution of this project, while also complying with high safety standards. This plant will show how strong our economic partnership with South Korea is,” Airlangga told Lee, as reported by a ministerial press statement.

Indonesia is banking on this plant to cut down on its petrochemical imports. The Indonesian government had previously announced that 70 percent of the plant’s output would go into meeting the national demand, while the remaining 30 percent would be dedicated to export markets.

Airlangga has high hopes that the plant will not only boost the national positive trade balance but will also position Indonesia as part of the Asia-Pacific supply chain.

The chief economic minister made a business pitch about Indonesia’s sovereign fund, Danantara, when meeting the Lotte Chemical top brass. He said that Danantara had been playing a “crucial role in facilitating the government’s strategic investments” to make sure the projects generate significant economic boons. 

The Danantara offer did not come as a surprise. Danantara Chief Executive Officer Rosan Roeslani revealed to reporters earlier this year that Prabowo had offered Lotte that Danantara was “open” to taking part in the Cilegon megaproject. 

“We [Danantara] actually have been talking with Lotte on this matter. We are studying the possibility,” Rosan said at a press briefing back in April.

The sort of petrochemicals that the plant will produce includes ethylene, a mainstay ingredient in plastic production. Also on the list is polypropylene, which has a wide range of uses, ranging from plastic packaging to textiles, as well as benzene.

The facility, which broke ground in 2018, had faced some overlapping land problems with the state-run steelmaker Krakatau Steel. In 2019, both companies inked a memorandum of understanding to settle the issue.

Prabowo is currently joining his South Korean counterpart Lee Jae Myung and other APEC leaders for a series of trade-related talks. Indonesia named South Korea as its seventh-largest foreign investor in 2024. The country attracted nearly $3 billion worth of foreign direct investment inflows from South Korea that year, government data showed.