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More than one year later, stalled relocation blights Rempang project
For more than one year the government has failed to relocate hundreds of Rempang Island residents to make way for what is promised to be the world’s second-largest glass and solar panel manufacturing site.
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Staying put: Protest signs are pictured on Tuesday, December 5, 2024, on the outskirts of Sembulang village on Rempang Island, where a glass and solar panel manufacturing site is to be constructed. Set up by a group of villagers resisting eviction for the industrial project, the signs reads: “To those who have accepted relocation: You are strictly prohibited from coming back to Sembulang!!!”. (JP/Fadli)
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or more than one year the government has failed to relocate hundreds of residents of Rempang Island in Batam, Riau Islands, to make way for what is promised to be the world’s second-largest glass and solar panel manufacturing site, casting doubt on the timeline of a major foreign direct investment project.
The Jakarta Post visited several Rempang villages where manufacturing sites of Xinyi Group are supposed to be established, but instead of heavy machinery preparing the ground for industrial facilities, it found protest signs and barricades erected by residents who refuse to move.
“We live in a coastal area. The glass comes from silica sand, and that comes from the sea. So, when the sea is mined [...] fishermen's livelihoods will be ruined,” 47-year-old resident Maswedi told the Post on Thursday.
He added that he would stay put “no matter what,” as his family had been living there for six generations, long before Indonesia even declared independence, and he took offense at how the government made the deal without involving the locals.
The government announced the US$11.5 billion investment pledge from Hong Kong-based Xinyi during a visit by then-president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to China in July last year.
Bahlil Lahadalia, who served as investment minister at the time, told the Post last year that Xinyi had committed the funds to develop processing facilities for quartz sand, which Indonesia has in abundance. Ninety-five percent of the facility’s glass and solar panel output is slated for export, according to the minister.
The first stage of the development was to relocate the residents, and the government had promised Xinyi that construction could commence by the end of September 2023.
