TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsDanantara steps in as primary funder for new Krakatau Steel plant
Danantara has stepped up to fill the funding gap for a new Krakatau Steel facility at KIEC, which previously attracted interest from Chinese investors.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
A worker inspects a furnace at a plant managed by Indonesian-South Korean joint venture PT Krakatau Posco at the Krakatau Industrial Estate Cilegon (KIEC) in Cilegon, Banten, in this file photo from 2015. (Kompas/Iwan Setiyawan)
P
ublicly listed state-owned steelmaker PT Krakatau Steel revealed that state asset fund Danantara was stepping in as the main investor for a new steel plant set to break ground in March this year, signaling a U-turn from a potential joint partnership with a Chinese investor.
Hernowo, Krakatau Steel’s commercial, business development and portfolio director, said the company was originally eyeing potential investment from China to shore up its weak financial capacity. However, Danantara’s entry meant the company no longer needed to seek other investors to serve as the project’s primary funder.
“Now the considerations have changed. Danantara plans to come in. If Danantara enters [the project], there will be no need for other investors. Partnerships [with other countries] will still be allowed, but control remains in Indonesia,” he said on Thursday, as quoted by Bisnis.com.
The country’s largest steel producer previously explored a partnership with China’s Delong Steel Group to build a steel plant, projected to have an annual capacity of 3 million tonnes, on a 500-hectare plot in the Krakatau Industrial Estate Cilegon (KIEC) in Banten.
The potential investment from Delong Steel Group, one of the world’s largest steelmakers, aimed at increasing production volume and providing technology transfers through the development of so-called green steel.
“China was the top [priority investor] yesterday, now China must be put behind. Technological cooperation may come from China or Korea as it does today, but they won’t be the majority [investor],” Hernowo underlined.
Krakatau Steel’s planned upstream iron and steel plant, he explained, was part of the government’s broader downstream mining agenda to process raw minerals such as iron ore and iron sand into higher-value products like carbon steel.
