The second phase of the Indonesia Deepwater Development (IDD), which will cover the Gendalo and Gehem fields in the Makassar Strait, is expected to take a very long time. The IDD project is under PT Chevron Pacific Indonesia. It began rolling in the Presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), but it continued to stall in President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s first term. Chevron and the Government has yet to agree on its Plan Of Development (POD).

Erick Thohir, minister of state-owned enterprises, was surprised to know how many non-core assets of state companies (hotels, hospitals, bottled water, etc). We’re not, and, apparently, his predecessor Rini Soemarno had actually started the consolidation. Rini started with consolidation of 77 hospitals owned by various SOEs to create the so-called PT Indonesia Healthcare Corporation (IHC) exactly three years ago.

After months of speculations, Achmad Zaky, founder of bukalapak.com has recently tendered his resignation as CEO. Rachmat Kaimuddin has been appointed new CEO of the e-commerce platform, which has been struggling to stay competitive in the market increasingly dominated by Tokopedia.

Environmental Office of Bali Provincial Administration has this morning officially invited investors to compete in the development of waste-to-energy project called Sarbagita in Bali Island. Participants are expected to pick up the prequalification documents for the Rp2.3 trillion project by December 20, 2019.

Policy inconsistency is one of issues highlighted by global investors when asked about their views on investing in Indonesia. The most recent inconsistency shown was in the policy related to export of nickel ores. It affected the country’s export for only two weeks or so, but the impact is way beyond the amount of unearned foreign exchange earnings.

So, President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo has on Friday (Dec 6) inaugurated the Kunciran-Serpong (11 KM) toll road, which is key component of the Jakarta Outer Ring Road-2 (JORR-2). Jasa Marga (JSMR), developer and operator of the toll road, believes two other sections of JORR-2 will be completed next year. 

Glencore, the world’s largest producer of cobalt, has just signed long-term supply deal with SK Innovation, a fast-growing producer of batter for electric vehicles (EV battery). Cobalt and nickel, as you know, are key components of EV battery, whose market size is believed to be US$150 billion by 2025, bigger than the semiconductor market.

We have to wait longer to see state oil and gas company Pertamina implementing expansion of Balongan refinery in West Java. Decision for the multi-billion dollar project is now pending competition of Front End Engineering Design (FEED) between two groups: RRE (Rekayasa Industri, Rekayasa Engineering, and PT Enviromate Technology International) vs JSW (JGC Indonesia, PT Synergy Engineering, and Wijaya Karya).

Indonesia welcomed 13.62 million visits by foreign tourist in the first 10 months of 2019, grew modestly by 2.85% only from the corresponding period last year. Assuming we can welcome 3 million visits in the last two months of 2019, the country can close the year with 16.6 million visits, doubled the number we recorded in 2014.