TEMPO.CO, Bandung - West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil claimed he was succeeded in lobbying Amazon’s cloud computing company, Amazon Web Services (AWS), to develop data center in West Java.

“Alhamdulillah, Amazon is willing to make an investment. This is made possible from [our efforts in] lobbying e-commerce technology firms, besides Alibaba,” said the governor in Bandung, Thursday, April 25.

Kamil said AWS was ready to invest dozens of trillion rupiahs. However, he stopped short of detailing the investment as the negotiation on the center location was still afoot.

“Inshallah, the investment will amount to dozens of trillions. [We’re] still lobbying three areas in West Java that I cannot mention because it’s still on progress. But for sure, it will not be in Bandung Raya. I recommend other regions,” Kamil explained.

He went on to say that AWS would collaborate with local companies for the investment. “Of course. Every foreign company investing [in Indonesia] cannot run by itself, but in synergy with locals. [The firm selection] is on their hand. I don’t know about it yet,” he added.

The former Bandung Mayor said technology in the data center would serve the needs of startup and e-commerce business entrepreneurs, and that would be in competition with technologies owned by Singapore.

“Singapore has the most advanced technology in Southeast Asia. We want to compete it with this. So our money will not flow abroad,” Kamil underlined.

Kamil said he deliberately lobbied technology companies including Amazon to invest in his region considering West Java was the readiest province to accommodate the technology. “As the vision of Digital West Java, we lobby all tech firms to enter West Java as the largest and readiest province.”

Ridwan Kamil exposed the efforts on his social media, mentioning one of the negotiations on technology transfer has yet finished. “The negotiation on knowledge transfer is currently progressing. We ask for the construction of 4.0 Institute to educate millennials and Z generation of West Java as to fulfill the job demand of one million digital experts for the future of West Java and Indonesia,” he said as quoted from his social network post.

The provincial administration, Ridwan Kamil added, prepared several policies to support the development of creative industry, such as regional decree on the creative economy, construction of the creative center in each city of West Java, and the establishment of Regional Creative Economy Board.

“That’s the government’s support for the creative economy, especially games that have a large market and will likely be our representation in the future,” Ridwan Kamil concluded.

AHMAD FIKRI (CONTRIBUTOR)

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