The Chairman of the Indonesia Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM), Thomas Lembong, visited a number of prominent companies in South Korea in an effort to push the realization of strategic investment plans that have been targeted since some time ago. During his visit, the Chairman of BKPM accompanied with Indonesian Ambassador for South Korea met with companies in the fields of steel, automotive, basic chemistry, logistics, cinema and entertainment, and energy. The visit was carried out as a follow-up to the working visit of the President of the Republic of Indonesia to South Korea on September 2018, which was intended to accelerate the realization of investment.

“There are many big investment opportunities from investors in Korea, such as Hyundai which will build an automotive factory. Beside the SUV and MPV cars, in the future they will produce eco-friendly car, which uses lithium batteries. We have a lot of nickel ores, which can later be made into lithium batteries. There is also POSCO which has entered the second phase of construction for their steel factory in Cilegon, Banten, "explained Thomas in an official statement to the media, Seoul (Monday, 13/05).

One of the prominent investors who met with the Chairman of BKPM is the Lotte Group which has existing retail business in Indonesia and is now developing its business in the field of entertainment, basic chemical industries and property development. One of Lotte Group subsidiaries that has entered the realization stage is PT. Lotte Chemical Indonesia (PT LCI) which is now building their petrochemical industrial complex valued at USD 3.5 billion or around IDR 53 trillion.

The construction of a naphtha cracker plant carried out by LCI is one of the government priority given the fact that it will be able to reduce domestic dependency on imported petrochemical products, and will also improve the trade balance concurrently because LCI production will be mainly for export market which supports the government export-oriented industrialization strategy.

“At the moment the business community has begun to recover after the completion of the political year. BKPM also continues to fix our new system, namely Online Single Submission, because this is one of the issues frequently discussed by the investors. As a next step, we will coordinate and have follow up meetings with several relevant ministries to come up with incentives that can be given to help accelerate investment realization after our visit to South Korea, "told Thomas.

Director of Sectors Investment Promotion of BKPM, Imam Soejoedi, who is also pro-active in handling investment projects from South Korea, added that one of the tangible forms of government support for companies that are committed to developing strategic industries in the country is by providing incentives, end-to-end facilitation and helping resolve issues faced by the company

will carry out intensive discussions with Lotte Group to provide facilities and investment incentives such as tax holidays for LCI. This is the concrete form of 'end-to-end service' provided by BKPM to investors. We hope that investment will not only benefit the community, but also investors who feel they have benefited from their business, "he said.

According to BKPM, investment from South Korea is dominated by machinery and electronics industry (15%); mining (13%); gas and water (9%); shoe industry (8%); and rubber and plastic industry (8%). Most of the investments are still located in Java, followed by Kalimantan and Sumatra. The total investment realization from 2014 to the first quarter of 2019 managed to reach USD 7.3 billion. With the realization of investments reaching USD 2 billion in 2017 and USD 1.6 billion in 2018.