T

he Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) has launched a command center to monitor the issuance of licenses in government offices and help expedite the process.

The Command Center for the Operation and Monitoring of Investment, which was launched on Monday, provides real-time information regarding the issuance of licenses to investors. This includes daily statistics of license issuance, recapitulation of license issuance by ministries and companies’ end-to-end licensing status, BKPM chairman Bahlil Lahadalia said during an online press conference that followed the opening of the center.

“With this command center, we can determine the problems in the issuance of the licenses. God Willing, with its new authorities, the BKPM will improve the speed, certainty and efficiency of licensing processes,” he said at the command center in Jakarta.

Since Presidential Instruction (Inpres) No. 7/2019 on the improvement of the ease of doing business (EODB) was introduced on Nov. 22 last year, BKPM has had the authority to take over business permits from ministries and other government institutions to attract investment.

The Inpres also designates the BKPM as the authority in evaluating and making recommendations regarding policies in ministries and government institutions that are deemed unfavorable to investors.

Bahlil said the command center provided accountability to the public and investors regarding the country’s licensing processes and hoped that it would help boost Indonesia’s rank on World Bank’s EODB index, which is currently 73rd.

“The BKPM will provide up-to-date data to the public and investors regarding all licensing matters through this command center to improve our EODB rank,” he said.

The construction of the BKPM command center began in October 2019 with total costs of about Rp 24.5 billion (US$1.4 million), BKPM secretary Andi Maulana said.

“The majority of the total cost, or around Rp 23 billion, was used for the procurement of the IT system, while Rp 1.5 billion were used for the center’s physical construction,” he said.

Bahlil said there was no current plan to revise and decrease this year’s investment realization target of Rp 886 trillion despite the pandemic-led stock market rout.

“We heard from the COVID-19 task force that the virus could recede in May. It’s true that currently our economy is slowing down, but it will regain speed once it’s over,” he said.

Bahlil said he was optimistic that investment realization in the first quarter of 2020 would increase by about 5 percent from the same period last year, which amounted to Rp 195.1 trillion.

He said that while the COVID-19 pandemic had begun to disrupt the economy, many stalled projects had started to regain traction and would therefore contribute to the increase in investment realization.

“There are some investment projects that have already progressed by about 50 to 60 percent. There are also Rp 200 trillion of stalled investments that we are helping to materialize,” he said.

Despite his optimism, Bahlil acknowledged on March 6 that investment from China was expected to decline during the pandemic, adding that the agency was seeking to maximize the potential of domestic investment.

The expected decline in Chinese investment would contrast with last year’s figures, where foreign direct investment from China grew almost twofold to $4.7 billion from $2.4 billion in 2018, according to the BKPM.

On Wednesday, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said that Indonesia’s economic growth rate could drop to between 4.5 and 4.9 percent in the first quarter, with the potential to fall further in the second quarter, as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the country’s economic activities. (mpr)