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fter nearly 12 years of uncertainty, the process of unification of state estate enterprises under one holding company has made a big step forward. State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) Minister Dahlan Iskan said that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had signed a government regulation concerning the matter last week.

It means the plan to establish a state estate holding company is no longer a mere discourse. PT Perkebunan Nusantara III has even been designated as the principal company of the 14 state estate enterprises.

We hope that this holding company can repeat the success story of the incorporation of three state cement enterprises, PT Semen Gresik, PT Semen Padang and PT Semen Tonasa, under PT Semen Indonesia Tbk, with assets of Rp30.76 trillion (US$2.57 billion) in June 2014.

The status of listed companies for the state estate holding company has also been deliberated for a long time. So the stock market will welcome PT Perkebunan Nusantara III, known as PTPN III.

It seems unfair for SOEs to compete with private companies. But isn'€™t the formation of holding companies indeed intended to make state enterprises capable of competing with the private sector?

The SOE Ministry has found in a study that the state estate holding company will quadruple its net profits, which are currently growing by only 3.5 percent annually. If that is the case, why has this state holding company been such a long time coming?

'€” Bisnis Indonesia