Indonesia’s Q2 FDI jumps nearly 40% y/y, biggest rise in a decade

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Foreign direct investment (FDI) into Indonesia rose 39.7% annually in the April-June period in rupiah terms to 163.2 trillion rupiah ($10.89 billion), the investment minister said on Wednesday, the biggest climb in the past decade.

The FDI, which excludes investment in banking and the oil and gas sectors, accelerated from a 31.8% increase in the January-March period.

The growth was mostly supported downstream industry development in mining and petrochemical sectors that have entered the construction phase, minister Bahlil Lahadalia told a news conference.

Singapore, China and Japan were Indonesia’s top sources of foreign investment for the period. The 39.7% rise was the biggest increase for any quarter according to Eikon Refinitiv’s records, which go back to 2011.

The government will continue to focus on the metal processing sector and industries that uses renewable energy, Bahlil said.

He reiterated that the government plans to ban exports of bauxite and tin to promote investment into their processing facilities onshore, part of a “reform” of foreign investment into Indonesia.

Its export ban of nickel ore had successfully attracted major investment, mostly from China, to produce metal and chemicals used in electric car batteries extracted from nickel ore.

($1 = 14,982.0000 rupiah)

(Reporting by Fransiska Nangoy, Stefanno Sulaiman; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor, Martin Petty)