The Importance of Balancing Commodity Supply and Demand

Deputy for Energy and Mineral Resources Coordination at the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs, Elen Setiadi, has emphasised the importance of maintaining a balance between the supply and demand of mineral and energy commodities. This is necessary to ensure that Indonesia’s natural resource management provides added value.

According to him, the government needs to ensure that commodities produced from Indonesia’s natural resources do not stop at the upstream stage, but can be developed into value-added products and absorbed by the domestic market.

“Gold, for example, we consider its downstream process to have reached the end point, which is the community. It can even be used for jewellery, for investment, and so on. What about the others? The task is to arrange regulations, for instance, for nickel, bauxite, and so on,” he said during the MINDialogue themed ‘Commodities for the Nation: Strategy for Strengthening Mineral Reserves for Economic Stability and Sovereignty’ on Wednesday (12/8/2026).

Elen assessed that the government needs to encourage downstream industry development while simultaneously regulating the balance between production and market needs. This step is necessary to ensure that the commodities produced have a clear market and offtaker.

“Do not forget, regulating the balance is important. Domestic interests are paramount, but preparing domestic needs is also a crucial part, because if it is merely provided without an offtaker, that becomes a problem,” he stated.

He mentioned that these efforts must be carried out in tandem with accelerating investment to develop domestic processing industries. In this regard, Danantara is considered to have an important role in encouraging investment in strategic sectors.

“So, this is the balance we need to create while accelerating, one of the tasks of Danantara, as Mr Singgih has already conveyed, I cannot repeat it, is how we encourage Danantara to invest,” he said.