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.
RI upbeat about Japanese investment
Change Size
Vice President Jusuf Kalla (right) sits with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad (center) and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at an international conference in Tokyo on June 11, 2018. (Courtesy of/Vice President’s office)
Indonesia believes Japanese investment in Southeast Asia’s largest economy still has the potential to increase.
“Japanese portfolio investment in Indonesia still has the potential to increase, as the value is very small at present,” Mirza Adityaswara, the senior deputy governor of Bank Indonesia (BI), said on Saturday after his meetings with Japanese investors and analysts in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan.
Indonesia needs to maintain ties with Japanese investors and provide up-to-date information about Indonesia’s economy on a continual basis, he said.
His meeting with Japanese investors and analysts in Tokyo and Osaka was part of a move to provide updated information about Indonesia.
Based on Finance Ministry data, the value of portfolio investment in the form of shares and bonds in rupiah as of December 2018 totaled US$163.56 billion, including $61.68 billion of foreign ownership.
The ownership of Japanese investors was recorded at only $2.07 billion. Their ownership of Indonesian bonds in yen is also small.
Adityaswara has called on all relevant stakeholder to help intensify ties with Japanese investors in order to attract more investment, including direct investment.
Investors would notice Indonesia’s commitment to development, if there was sound coordination and synergy among relevant stakeholders in the country, he added.
Suahasil Nazara, head of the Finance Ministry’s Fiscal Policy Agency, said the government was optimistic about attracting more investment from Japan by offering up-to-date information to Japanese investors.
Indonesian Ambassador to Japan Arifin Tasrif added that the value of Japanese trade and investment in Indonesia would increase if the two countries signed an economic partnership agreement.
He hoped the agreement would be signed in June this year, prior to the G20 Summit in Japan.
Indonesia enjoyed a trade surplus of some $2 billion with Japan, which was not a problem for Japan, he said. (brf)
