Jokowi Meets Freeport Chairman; Discuss Investment Expansion, Downstream Industry

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - President Joko Widodo or Jokowi met with Freeport MsMoRan Chairman Richard Adkerson in between his visits in Washington DC, USA, on Monday, November 13, 2023, local time.

Jokowi welcomed discussions about the investment expansion and mining business permit extension of Freeport in Indonesia.

"I am happy to listen to the discussion of the 10 percent additional investment of Freeport in Indonesia and 20 years extension of the mining permit," Jokowi said to Richard Adkerson as quoted from the press release received in Jakarta on Tuesday, November 14, at early in the morning.

The president hoped the negotiation could be finalized at the end of this month.

Meanwhile, Ad Interim Coordinating Minister of the Maritime and Investment Affairs Erick Thohir stated that the value of trade between Indonesia and the US is consistently on the rise, marked by the nearly US$16 billion trade surplus this year.

"US investment to Indonesia is currently ranked fourth, something that has never happened before," Erick Thohir said.

Thus, President Jokowi, Erick said, keeps pushing for US investment in Indonesia, including from Freeport McMoRan. "In which the SOEs took hold of 51 percent [of its shares]," he said.

During the meeting, Jokowi and the CEO of Freeport McMoRan also discussed Freeport's downstream investment. Freeport, he said has begun to develop smelters to process gold and copper it mined, starting from the smelter in East Java.

Erick explained that Freeport is committed to developing more smelters in Indonesia, namely in Fakfak, West Papua. 

"This will increase foreign investment in Indonesia to create more job opportunities as intended by the President [Jokowi]," he concluded.

ANTARA

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