The minister expressed his appreciation at the Launch of the Report on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities of Chinese companies in Indonesia here on Friday, with the Ambassador of China to Indonesia Lu Kang in attendance.
"In the past, we relied on commodities. People forgot that downstreaming had an extensive impact. If we look at Freeport, (of their time) of 50 years being here, they have never conducted downstreaming, Chinese companies have entered with downstreaming, with very good technology and technology transfer," he pointed out.
Nonetheless, he also admitted that in the first five years of the realization of Chinese investment, several Chinese experts and workers had come to Indonesia. However, this occurred, as Indonesia did not have qualified experts to operate factories or machines from bamboo curtain investors.
"I have been criticized a lot about this (Chinese workers), but we really do not have any (local people capable to do it)," he remarked.
He said that in the past three years, increasingly more number of Indonesian people have worked for Chinese companies.
"Now, in these three years, more and more Indonesian children, who used to be nobodies, are now one of the operators there. Without us realizing this, education in eastern Indonesia is developing well because they have to improve their quality to be able to work in the factory," he noted.
Pandjaitan admitted to have never imagined that China would have good technology and have high efficiency and an extraordinary spirit. "Most importantly, they want to share technology and educate our children to understand their technology," he concluded.
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Translator: Ade Irma J, Mecca Yumna
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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