Industries

Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment inaugurated PT LBM Energi Baru Indonesia’s first production of lithium ferro phosphate (LFP) in Kendal Industrial Park, Central Java province yesterday.

India is one of Indonesia’s major trading partners with combined non oil and gas trading value of around US$17 billion behind China, USA, and Japan. When it comes to investment, however, India is not seen as main source of foreign direct investment (FDI).

Back in 1996, when I spent three whole months of journalism work in Vietnam, I wrote some articles published by Bisnis Indonesia, the largest business paper in the country. In one of the articles, I reminded policymakers that Vietnam would surpass Indonesia in manufacturing if the country doesn’t seriously preparing infrastructure and superstructure (industrial discipline). 

Going east. More industrial parks have been developed in Central and East Java in the past few years to take benefit from improved infrastructure and lower average wages than peers in West Java, which remains the largest manufacturing base in the country.

Twenty seven years ago, I landed at Mangkajang airstrip in Berau Regency for inauguration of PT Kiani Kertas, the first pulp factory in Kalimantan, by then president Soeharto. Months earlier, Soeharto issued a decree for the provision of Rp250 billion loans to help out PT Kiani Kertas, which was owned by his golf buddy Bob Hasan. 

Google has reportedly decided to build US$1 billion data centre in Thailand. In late August 2024, global media outlets reported that the tech giant also considered Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam as potential location for a hyper scale data centre. 

Nickel has been hovering above US$17,000 per ton in the past few days as China, currently the world’s largest market for electric vehicle (EV), will likely continue to support the growth. The commodity, however, will unlikely return to high-price environment due to correction in other markets, particularly Europe.

Almost all big names of tire manufacturers have local manufacturing presence in Indonesia. Some players might have left the country, but others keep coming to tap the growth opportunities. Two Chinnese tire manufacturers, ZC Rubber and Sailun Group, are among those trying to take on the market competition.

Steel price recovered slightly Wednesday as market participants responded positively new incentives from China and reports about lower output in some major producing countries. Still, the key construction and machinery material is way below the same period last year.

Compared to peers, state mining companies (INALUM and Aneka Tambang) have been very slow in adding value to the bauxite ore resources. Aneka Tambang (ANTM) was actually the first to build a chemical grade alumina (CGA) refinery, but even one decade after its first commercial operation the so-called Tayan CGA yet to make money.