"The rise of foreign direct investment has been the highest in Indonesia`s foreign investment history, on a quarterly basis," said Gita Wirjawan, head of capital investment coordinating board (BKPM).Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Foreign investment rose 30.3 percent in the first quarter of 2012 to Rp51.5 trillion, compared with Rp39.5 trillion for the same period in the previous year.
"The rise of foreign direct investment has been the highest in Indonesia`s foreign investment history, on a quarterly basis," said Gita Wirjawan, head of capital investment coordinating board (BKPM), here on Monday.
He noted that the increase in foreign investment was driven by various policies that were made to spread investments across the country`s regions.
Gita, who is also the trade minister, said the increase in foreign investment in the past quarter was thanks mainly to South Korea and Japan.
Two South Korean companies that have heavily invested are Posco - in a steel plant in Cilegon, West Java, with an investment worth about US$6 billion for the next three to five years - and Hankook, with an investment of around US$1.3 billion for the next two to three years.
"They are more courageous in entering strategic sectors," he stated.
Gita, however, called on all parties to not rejoice too early because there were still a lot of external factors that could affect realization of foreign investment until the end of this year.
"It must be admitted that foreign investment performance has been increasing right now, but economic conditions in various regions like Europe and the US have not yet fully recovered. So, hard work is still needed to improve the investment climate and ensure that investment prospects in Indonesia are bright," he said.
Based on the BKPM data, the five biggest foreign investments in the first quarter of 2012 came from Singapore (US$1.2 billion), Japan (US$0.6 billion), South Korea (US$0.5 billion), British Virginia Islands (US$0.3 billion), and the Netherlands (US$0.3 billion).
Meanwhile, five sectors that have attracted the highest investments are mining (US$1.1 billion), warehouse transportation and telecommunication (US$0.8 billion), food crops and plantations (US$0.5 billion), basic metal, metal goods, machinery and electronics industries (US$0.5 billion), and transportation equipment and other transportation industries (US$0.4 billion).
The five biggest foreign investment locations are Jakarta (US$1.2 billion), West Java (US$1.1 billion), Banten (US$0.6 billion), South Sulawesi (US$0.4 billion), and West Nusa Tenggara (US$0.4 billion).
The investments helped in absorption of 358,385 more workers � 250,711 in foreign investment projects and 107,674 in domestic investment projects.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2012
