MACROECONOMICS - JAKARTA. While the government is trying to attract more investors to Indonesia, it has not been able to convince investors to make good on their pledges, an official at the Coordinating Economic Minister’s Office has said.
The office's deputy for commerce and industry affairs, Edy Putra Irawady, said only 31 percent of investment pledges from domestic investors and 27 percent of foreign investment pledges had been realized in the last 10 years.
“We found that this happened in a number of regions. The [investors] could not materialize their investment plans because of various problems,” said Edy in Bandung, as reported by kontan.co.id on Monday.
He said the value of unfulfilled investment pledges was about US$50 billion and involved 190 projects.
Edy said records showed the variety of problems investors had faced, including complicated licensing procedures, bureaucratic red tape and uncertainties, and property issues such as land acquisitions.
Some existing investors stopped investing because they were disappointed by the difficulties obtaining facilities that were promised by the government.
He said the government was currently dealing with the problems by improving the one-stop integrated services for investors and introducing standardized licensing services through a single application scheme.
“The pilot for the scheme will start on Jan. 1 and it will be fully implemented on March 1,” Edy said. He added that another facility that would be provided was allowing investors who were developing factories in industrial estates to delay arranging their business permits until construction was complete. (bbn)
