Industry Minister: Industrial Estate Bill to Cut Investment Barriers
The Ministry of Industry has completed drafting the Industrial Estate Bill, which is currently being deliberated together with the House of Representatives.
Jakarta (ANTARA) — Minister of Industry Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita said the Industrial Estate Bill was drawn up to strengthen the function of industrial estates whilst cutting the various obstacles that have long hindered investment realisation.
“The Ministry of Industry has completed the drafting of the Industrial Estate Bill, and the bill is currently being deliberated together with the House of Representatives,” Agus said when opening the National Working Meeting of the Indonesian Industrial Estates Association (HKI) in Jakarta on Thursday.
According to Agus, the bill is designed to achieve two main objectives.
First, it clarifies the position of industrial estates not merely as land managers, but as organisers of industrial ecosystems with clear authority and responsibilities.
Second, the regulation is intended to accelerate the construction and development of industrial estates by removing the various obstacles currently faced by businesses.
“In other words, this law is the state’s endeavour to shorten the distance between investment commitment and production,” he said.
He said deliberation of the bill is still ongoing in the House, so industrial estate players still have the opportunity to provide input on its substance.
According to Agus, the government wants to design the Industrial Estate Bill as a regulation capable of answering the challenges of industrial estate development in the long term, not just for the next five years.
Agus added that industrial estate operators’ experience of various constraints and best practices in the field constitutes important input that the government cannot obtain from other sources.
He expressed hope that the HKI National Working Meeting could produce concrete recommendations to serve as material for refining the Industrial Estate Bill.
Meanwhile, HKI Chairman Akhmad Ma’ruf Maulana said the Industrial Estate Bill is needed to improve the competitiveness of Indonesian industrial estates, which are considered to still lag behind Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand.
According to Akhmad, one of the main problems faced by industrial estate players today is a permitting bureaucracy that is not yet synchronised between the central and regional governments.
“We need the Industrial Estate Bill to make investment easier. At present there are still many obstacles,” he said.