Overseas investors may get permanent residency
Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) said on Monday that it was considering allowing foreign investors with a minimum investment of only US$100,000 to obtain permanent residency in this country.
"We are considering granting permanent residency for foreign investors based on an investment value of at least $100,000," BKPM chairman Theo F. Toemion said following a meeting with a number of Japanese investors at his office.
"Such an incentive package has been included in the new investment draft law which will be submitted to the House of Representatives for deliberation this month," he added.
According to Theo, the plans to offer incentives are aimed at attracting more foreign investors back to the country to help restore the economy to health.
Under the proposed bill, the government will offer fiscal and non-fiscal incentives, and provide equal treatment both to foreign and local investors.
The government would also establish a one-stop service center to boost the country's attractiveness in the eyes of foreign investors.
The new bill will replace the existing Foreign Investment Law No. 1/1967 and Domestic Investment Law No. 11/1970.
Meanwhile, Shuichiro Tsuchiyama, an international business adviser with the Japan Small and Medium Enterprise Corporation (Jasmec) welcomed the BKPM's plans to offer permanent residency as an incentive.
"Such permanent residency will encourage hundreds of Japan's small and medium enterprises to come to Indonesia," he explained.
He said that around half of Jasmec's 400 members could come to invest in Indonesia following the introduction of the new ruling.
But he said that the Japanese small and medium investors had initially expected the Indonesian government to grant them permanent residency based upon an investment of only $50,000.
Takasihi Onda, secretary-general of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN)-Japan center, said that the interest of Japanese investors in coming to Indonesia remained strong.
However, he urged the government to immediately restore the investment climate here to attract Japanese investors who were now considering shifting their production bases outside Japan.
"The Indonesian government must be able to assure Japanese investors of stability in both politics and the local currency," he said.
A number of Japanese small and medium enterprises are now visiting Indonesia to seek investment opportunities.