BKPM Chief Asks All Ministries to Open Up to Investment

The new Head of the Investment Coordination Board (BKPM), Thomas Lembong, has asked all ministries to open up to investment. He wants the ministries to lay the groundwork for responding to investment interest by deregulating and making licensing easier so that investment plans can be put in to action quickly.

Lembong said that at a cabinet meeting, President Joko Widodo had advised that investment is the key to economic progress. For this reason, Lembong said, the government must promote inward investment.

However he believes that regulatory reform and deregulation needs to go further to facilitate inward investment and make investment plans happen. “Because making investment plans reality is affected by internal (government) problems,” said Lembong at the handover of the position of BKPM Chief from Franky Sibarani at the BKPM Building, Jakarta, Thursday (18/7).

(Read: BKPM: Capital Goods Import Checks Take Less Than a Day)

The former Trade Minister also promised that the BKPM would continue to spearhead deregulation and economic reform. When under Lembong’s lead the Ministry of Trade and the BKPM collaborated and produced several investment facilities. One such facility, initiated in collaboration with the Directorate General of Customs and Excise, was the adoption of a ‘green lane’ scheme to speed up customs clearance.

“So there are no shortcuts; the deregulations must continue, including in the regions,” he said.

Meanwhile, Franky Sibarani asked Lembong to keep up with the investment data transparency that was introduced when he headed up the BKPM. He was also confident that Lembong would carry on the positive work done by the board, in light of the many investment easing products the BPKM had produced in collaboration with the Ministry of Trade.

“There’s the One-Stop Integrated Services, the three-hour investment permit, the ‘green lane’ scheme, and the special textile and footwear desks,” said Franky. (Read: Three-Hour Permit Attracts Investment of IDR 132 Trillion)

Previously, the BKPM claimed that the ‘green lane’ scheme to speed up customs clearance, managed in partnership with the Directorate General of Customs and Excise, had reduced the time taken to complete import checks to less than one day. The aim was to make it easier and quicker for investors to implement their investment plans in Indonesia.

Before the ‘green lane’ scheme was introduced, customs clearance took six days. The scheme cut time taken to import capital goods by 94 percent to 0.36 days.

Capital goods include machinery, goods and other equipment needed for investment. “The green lane scheme has speeded up investment,” said Franky, Tuesday (26/7). (Read: BKPM: KLIK Scheme Accelerates16 Industrial Zone Construction Projects)

Today, 66 investors have used this facility, of which 62 have imported capital goods worth IDR 15.9 trillion. “The total planned investment of the 66 companies is IDR 179.9 trillion,” said Franky.