“There are a lot of big investors who expressed their desire to be the first [investor] to use [the OSS],” he told reporters at an Idul Fitri open house at his official residence over the weekend.

Darmin added that the launch of the system was one of his main priorities after the Idul Fitri holiday, which ends on Wednesday.

“We are working hard so that the OSS would be launched after Idul Fitri. It depends on the President’s [Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo] schedule [to launch OSS],” he said.

Previously, the Office of the Coordinating Economic Ministry had requested an additional Rp 53.33 billion (US$38.36 million) from lawmakers to develop the OSS and to continue reforming the business licensing process.

The budget is needed because the ministry is set to take over the operation of the system from the Coordinating Investment Board (BKPM) for an additional six months because the latter needs time and an extra budget to set up the required human resources to run it.

The implementation of the OSS is seen as a key step for Indonesia to further increase its World Bank Ease of Doing Business (EODB) ranking, which Jokowi ambitiously said would be 40^th in 2019.

Indonesia was ranked 72^nd last year, rising 19 places from 91^st position. It, however, still lags behind its regional peers. Thailand and Malaysia, for example, are ranked 26^th and 24^th, respectively. (dwa)

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