Danantara urges businesses to strengthen mineral processing industry
Danantara Indonesia CEO Rosan Roeslani has called on all business actors to strengthen the mineral processing industry so that Indonesia can dominate the global supply chain. According to Rosan Roeslani in a statement in Jakarta on Wednesday, it is time for Indonesia to achieve sovereignty through the development of the mineral processing industry. The added value of Indonesia’s mineral wealth has largely been enjoyed by other countries because Indonesia generally only processes up to the extraction stage.
“Indonesia is blessed with extraordinary mineral wealth, from nickel, bauxite, copper, tin, to rare earths. These materials are the foundation of future technologies, such as electric vehicle batteries, semiconductors, defence, and clean energy,” Rosan said in the statement. “However, for decades we have too often stopped at the extraction point: exporting raw materials, then buying back finished products at many times the price.”
During the Danantara’s Advanced Materials Industry Dialogue: From Minerals to Manufacturing, a memorandum of understanding on the downstreaming of critical minerals was also signed between PT Mineral Industri Indonesia (Persero), PT LEN Industri (Persero), PT Krakatau Steel (Persero) Tbk, and PT Pindad (Persero). The collaboration aims to optimise the supply chain and offtake of critical minerals and advanced materials to meet national strategic industry needs. The development is directed not only at the electric vehicle industry but also at the aerospace, maritime, basic components, defence, and electricity sectors.
Danantara Indonesia Chief Technology Officer Sigit P. Santosa said the development of the middle-stream materials industry must be part of the national industrial transformation towards a technology-based economy, high value-added manufacturing, and future supply chain dominance. Indonesia needs to seize regional demand opportunities, build technological capabilities, and enhance competitiveness in the global market to achieve sustainable economies of scale. “Indonesia’s strength lies not only in the availability of minerals but in our ability to transform them into an advanced materials industrial ecosystem that supports batteries, clean energy, defence, transportation, and various other strategic future technologies,” Sigit explained. He added that the development of the advanced materials industry must be carried out in a more integrated manner as a foundation to strengthen national industrial competitiveness. “Nickel remains one of the important advantages, but the larger agenda is to build a broader, high value-added, and globally competitive industrial capacity,” Sigit said.