VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Luhut B. Pandjaitan introduced the concept of maritime diplomacy through a white paper on Indonesian maritime policy which was also released in the Public Lecture titled Indonesia's Maritime Diplomacy: the Current Challenges. The event was attended by policy makers, diplomats from friendly countries, academics, and the media in the Jakarta Center for Strategic and International Studies building, Friday, February 22, 2019. In his presentation Minister Luhut explained, lithium battery raw material factories in Morowali Indonesia region Industrial Park (IMIP), Central Sulawesi, will be the largest battery raw material factory in the world, because the entire process will be integrated in the region. He said, the initial investment reached 720 million dollars.

“There has been 8 billion dollars of investment in Morowali, 16 billion dollars in the next five years from the nickel, stainless steel, carbon steel to lithium battery industries. We do not know that so far Indonesia is so powerful that lithium batteries are the material in Indonesia. There are 65 to 70 percent so why don't we make lithium batteries here. Now it's ground breaking, I did that in January, investing 720 million dollars. And in one and a half years it will be. From there, we will export the material, the product is approximately 800 million dollars, you can imagine in last, two years. But I don't want to stop there. Now it's cooperation from China and Korea to make this battery,” said Luhut.

In the event, the Polish ambassador Beata Stoczynska who was present also expressed his interest in investing in the mining sector, especially in Morowali. Luhut welcomed this and suggested the Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia to arrange investment licensing documents online in one stop service service. (VOI/NK/AHM)