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aul Polman, the chief executive officer of Anglo-Dutch Unilever — the world’s second-biggest producer of household consumer goods after US-based Procter & Gamble — announced on Thursday a whopping US$600 million in additional investment to expand its production base in Indonesia.

A few months earlier, Procter & Gamble revealed a $100 million program to build factories near Jakarta. Up until now, this latecomer had been tapping into the Indonesian market from its production base in Thailand.

Meanwhile, Japanese convenience store giant 7-Eleven has since early 2010 been invading Jakarta with its orange, green and red storefronts, and is now gearing up to expand into other major cities across the country as the growth centers of the economy spread to areas outside Java.

These are just some of the many large foreign investors that have been attracted by the emergence of Indonesia as one of the world’s biggest consumer markets. In fact, Indonesia’s domestic consumption has accounted for more than 60 percent of its growth, and has served as a buffer to fallout from the economic slumps in Europe and the United States.

The starting up of the ASEAN economic community with its single market in 2015 will likely further add to Indonesia’s strategic position — as the largest economy in the region and a beachhead for international companies to tap into the other nine ASEAN markets.

Supported by a steady and robust economic growth over the past five years, the size of Indonesia’s middle class (with daily spending of between $5 and $20) has significantly increased to almost 50 million, according a recent World Bank report. And this number more than doubles to 130 million (more than 54 percent of Indonesia’s total population of almost 240 million) if those with a daily expenditure of $2 to $5 are included.

Despite the fact that the Indonesian middle class has a significantly lower income and spending compared to its Western counterparts, its growth in expenditure has been dramatic, as seen in the brisk sales of motorcycles, smartphones, automobiles and a wide range of other luxury goods.

Those with inordinately high nationalistic sentiment may argue against the benefits of these big businesses because they are controlled or partly owned by foreign interests.

But such arguments have a narrow focus and tend to be groundless. While it is extremely difficult now to distinguish between Indonesian goods and foreign ones amid the increasingly globalized economy, any production bases or plants set up in this country greatly benefit our national economy through the generation of jobs, taxes and value-adding through the use of local raw materials.

The rationale is that production is at the same time consumption, and consumption is simultaneously production. Without production there is no consumption, but without consumption there is no production either, since in that case production would be useless.

Having confidence in the consumption of domestic products, whether made by national or foreign companies, is actually having confidence in this country’s future, and consequently in our own future.

Those who are horrified by the influx of foreign investors into various economic sectors should realize that all these businesses, be they national or foreign, must abide by our laws and regulations. However, what is most imperative is for business competition watchdogs to see to it that the national and foreign companies compete in a level market, and the few giant players such as Univelever and Procter & Gamble do not engage in price-fixing.