“Around Rp 700 trillion [in investment] have not been realized because of land [acquisition], licensing or other issues. There are bottlenecks at both the central and regional government level because of overlapping regulations that need to be synchronized,” BKPM head Bahlil Lahadalia told leaders of regional investment offices from across Indonesia on Monday.

“What they complain about most is permits from technical ministries that they consider complicated,” Bahlil said, summarizing his key takeaway from a meeting with the heads of the Capital Investment and One-Stop Integrated Services Agency (DPMPTSP) in the regions.

There were overly complicated and overlapping regulations in several ministries, including the Environment and Forestry Ministry as well as the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, he added.

The government has been striving to attract more investment to the country to spur economic growth, which slowed to its lowest level in more than two years in the third quarter.

Investment growth, which accounted for around a third of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), slumped to 4.21 percent in the third quarter from 6.96 in the same period last year, Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data show.

Representatives of investment offices from across Indonesia agreed that the issues most often were related to multi-layered bureaucracy and regulatory overlap. Bahlil promised to start debottlenecking the deeply rooted issues that hindered investment at the regional level.

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