Mining and Plantations Have Potential to Develop Transmigration Areas

Minister of Transmigration Muhammad Iftitah Sulaiman Suryanagara views mining and plantations as having the potential to develop transmigration areas. This potential stems from research by 2,000 researchers in the Patriot Expedition 2025 Team across 154 transmigration areas.

“If in Mamuju there are rare earth metals. Then also bioethanol, for example from palm oil, that’s also plantations and so on including sugarcane. We are also potentialising that,” he said during a press conference at his office on Monday, 4 May 2026.

Iftitah stated that all potentials from mining and plantation activities fall under the Land Management Rights (HPL) of transmigration areas. Thus, the Ministry of Transmigration is focusing on creating new economic growth for transmigrants so they remain employed and productive.

“It’s not just about being relocated and then handed over to the community; it’s not like that,” he explained.

The utilisation of HPL is one example for the 13 oil wells project in Samboja, Kutai Kartanegara Regency, East Kalimantan. The oil reserves therein are estimated at 0.96 million barrels or nearly 1 million barrels and 11.64 billion cubic feet of natural gas. The project is planned to start in June 2026.

Iftitah said that transmigration areas have economic potential beyond agriculture. The Ministry of Transmigration will create various potentials from the 3.2 million hectares of HPL in state-owned transmigration areas.

“Transmigration is not always synonymous with food or just agriculture,” he stated.

To further explore the potential, the Ministry of Transmigration is reopening registration for the Patriot Expedition Team this year. A total of 1,458 people will be deployed to 53 transmigration areas focused on feasibility studies as a follow-up to the previous year.