Jakarta. President Prabowo Subianto tried to attract Asia-Pacific investors to Indonesia by promising them a favorable investment climate and a plan to create more of the so-called special economic zones (SEZs) during a summit this week.

Prabowo spoke before the region’s C-level executives at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in Lima on Thursday local time. 

Prabowo’s first order of business at the conference was to convince the region’s businessmen that Indonesia is an investment destination they do not want to miss.

The ex-army general unveiled his plans to establish more SEZs or areas in the country that the government designates as new economic growth centers. Anyone who opens factories in the SEZs may get special treatment ranging from corporate income tax deductions to easier permits. 

“We are going forward with more incentives. We have created several SEZs. We will create more of these SEZs in order to invite the [investors with the] modern, advanced, leading, and cutting-edge technologies,” Prabowo told the APEC CEO Summit.

Prabowo claimed that he fully understood what the investors truly needed -- thanks to his past experience as a businessman. 

“Before I entered the government, I was a businessman and entrepreneur. So I do understand from both sides the challenges faced by private businesses. Private businesses want legal certainty, favorable economic climate, political stability, security, good conditions, favorable incentives,” Prabowo said.

Indonesia today has 24 SEZs spread across the archipelago, most of them getting the special economic zone status during Former President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s ten-year leadership. 

Prabowo also tried to nudge the APEC investors into taking part in Indonesia’s hundreds-billion dollar plan for the country to move up the production value chain across many of its commodities.

“We are determined to industrialize by … processing our resources [domestically]. We have 26 commodities that we are determined to [build] the processing industry. We calculate that we need investments of around $600 billion,” Prabowo said.

He added: “Indonesia is open for more business. I’m determined to protect all investments and give favorable economic conditions.”

This massive downstream industry development -- which reflects the country’s resource nationalism -- already started with nickel. Indonesia under the Jokowi government has stopped exporting unprocessed nickel in favor of processing the silvery-white metal at home. Plans are underway to replicate the policy to other commodities, including seaweed.

The newly installed Prabowo government aims to record Rp 1,905 trillion  (around $119 billion) in overall investments throughout next year.

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