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RI's 'hard stance' wins in mineral ore export ban policy
A number of analysts have deemed the Indonesian government the biggest winner in the implementation of its mineral ore export ban, albeit the short-term economic pressures that the country is enduring
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number of analysts have deemed the Indonesian government the biggest winner in the implementation of its mineral ore export ban, albeit the short-term economic pressures that the country is enduring.
More than six months since the ban's implementation on Jan. 12, the government stands by its decision on the ban in an attempt to develop the downstream industry, although granting some compromises to some US mining giants.
Xavier Jean, an analyst with rating agency Standard & Poor's, applauded Indonesian policymakers' 'hard stance' in a policy that might be a long-term economic bet with short-term economic risks.
'The government's hard stance has, however, forced miners to reconsider their bargaining power with the government, even if they are not affected by the ban,' Jean told The Jakarta Post in an email interview.
'Have the economic consequences in terms of employment, tax and royalty receipts and exports been worse than the government expected? I don't think so,' he added.
Data from the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) shows that the ore export ban, an implementing regulation of the 2009 Mining Law, has triggered at least 50 planned smelter projects in Indonesia in total investments worth US$31.4 billion.
Set to be realized within the next few years, such an amount of investment would be equivalent to Indonesia's foreign direct investments (FDI) in all sectors for one whole year, which stood at around $28 billion in 2013.
'Has Indonesia's minerals export ban been successful? Our view: Yes,' Morgan Stanley analysts Joel Crane, Adam Longson and Alan Lee wrote in a research note released recently.
The implantation of the law has succeeded in dramatically reducing the export levels of unprocessed metals and ores, consequently forcing local miners to invest in mineral-processing smelters, according to Morgan Stanley.
'Moreover, Chinese companies have already committed to downstream processing build out of Indonesia ' the primary purpose of the ban,' they wrote in the note. 'Indeed we now include a healthy ramp-up profile of nickel pig-iron smelters in Indonesia.'
The Indonesian ban of exports for mineral ores, including nickel, bauxite, zinc, and iron, have caused a 30 percent jump in prices of nickel in the first half this year, making the commodity the best performer on the London Metal Exchange, and a 5 percent surge in prices of aluminum, which is made from bauxite.
The commodity markets had initially been 'very complacent, thinking the Indonesians would backtrack' from implementing the policy, Barclays Bank base metals strategist Gayle Barry was quoted by the Financial Times as saying.
Despite the government's stance on enforcing the ban, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has allowed US-based mining giant Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold Inc. to export semi-finished copper through a more relaxed regulation for the commodity.
The relaxation was struck following a lengthy lobbying process after Freeport and Newmont Mining Corp ' another US-based copper miner operating in Indonesia ' was forced to close its operations for months due to the progressive tax for copper ore exports designed by Finance Minister Chatib Basri.
The relaxed regulation for a ban of copper exports 'doesn't appear to be favoring Freeport, but it is more pragmatic' to compensate for the short-term pressure in the domestic economy, argued Shaun Levine, a political risk analyst with a New York-based research firm Eurasia Group.
