President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) stated that the ban on raw nickel exports in the mining industry’s downstreaming process will benefit the country and people through taxes and added value.

While opening the XVIII Conference of Muhammadiyah Youth in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, Wednesday, the president explained that Indonesia’s nickel trade value had surged, from Rp17 trillion (US$1.08 billion) to Rp450 trillion (US$28.8 billion) in 2022 after the export ban.

“(An increase) from Rp17 trillion to Rp450 trillion means that our country’s revenues from company taxes, employee taxes, and royalties, as well as non-tax revenues and export fees, are multiplying,” Jokowi stated, as observed from the Presidential Secretariat’s YouTube channel.

The president remarked that the surging state revenues would be transferred to regions as village fund or social assistance packages. He also dismissed assumptions that the raw material export ban aims to benefit only some parties.

“There must be no one that opined ‘But sir, those who will benefit (from the ban) are only major corporations’. No, the government also gets (the benefit) from (sources that) I have explained earlier, such as taxes, non-tax revenues, and export fees,” he explained.

He also stressed that Indonesia must get the added value from the country’s natural resources, including mining commodities.

“We, for scores or even hundreds of years since the VOC (era), export only raw materials, for which the added value we could not enjoy,” Jokowi stated while referring to the Dutch East India Company that ruled the Indonesian archipelago until the 18th century.

Indonesia has enforced the nickel ore export ban since January 1, 2020, through Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Regulation No. 11 of 2019. The country also planned to prohibit bauxite exports by June 2023 and also the same for raw copper this year.

Source: Antara News