"I ask (all parties) to continue to improve the national and regional investment climate and increase investment realization," President Jokowi stated at the 2023 National Investment Coordination Meeting monitored online here on Thursday.
Drawing attention to the case of Lotte's investment in Banten Province, the president deemed it necessary to bring about improvements in licensing and land acquisition, among other areas.
"We have always been marketing-oriented, but when investors came, land acquisition failed, so they did not invest. Investors are coming again, but the licensing is difficult, so they do not invest," he pointed out.
Hence, the president instructed that the investment sector should no longer focus on marketing, but rather, shift to strategies for solving domestic problems.
According to Jokowi, an effective strategy to attract investor interest is to work in a focused, detailed, and thorough manner at the problem nodes in the country.
"It is useless to do marketing throughout the country, while we cannot resolve the land issue when many investors come here. It is useless for many investors to come in while the licensing issue cannot be resolved for years," Jokowi pointed out.
On that occasion, Jokowi affirmed that Indonesia was ranked as the 34th most competitive country in the world based on a report by the Swiss academic institution, the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), in 2023.
Indonesia is ranked 34th out of 64 countries recorded, or up from the 44th ranking in 2022.
However, President Jokowi emphasized the need to continue to improve the competitiveness ranking through hard work.
"When compared with the Philippines, which is at number 52, we still win. However, when compared with Thailand, we lose, because they are ranked 30th. When compared with Malaysia, we also lose because Malaysia is ranked 27th," he remarked.
In the meantime, Jokowi noted that Singapore, as a neighboring country to Indonesia, is one of the nations with the highest competitiveness since it is currently ranked fourth-highest in the world.
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Translator: Andi Firdaus, Katriana
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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