Luhut plans to focus on foreign investment

Luhut plans to focus on foreign investment

SINGAPORE (Bloomberg): Indonesia's newly appointed trade and industry minister, Luhut Panjaitan, said he plans to focus on attracting foreign investors by offering them incentives and easier access.

Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid yesterday fired Trade and Industry Minister Yusuf Kalla and appointed Luhut, currently Indonesia's ambassador to Singapore, to replace him.

"One thing I assure and promise is to make it easier and give more incentives to foreign investors to do business in Indonesia -- that's my top objective," Luhut said in a telephone interview. "With my experience as the ambassador here for eight months, I understand very well the expectations and concerns of foreign investors."

The appointment comes after Indonesia's economic ministers came under increasing criticism for carrying out economic reforms too slowly. Indonesia is the only crisis-hit Asian country where foreign direct investment has fallen in the past two years.

Luhut promised "easy government access" for foreign investors.

"If they have any problem in dealing with the government in terms of regulations, they can contact me any time and I'll try to sort out the problem immediately," he said.