MPR Chairman: Foreign Investors May Manage Indonesian Islands
13 January 2017 15:12 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Chairman of the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR), Zulkifli Hasan, reminded that Indonesia is a sovereign state. Therefore, he said that foreign investors who are interested in managing Indonesia’s islands must also preserve Indonesia’s sovereignty.
“Foreign [investors] may settle in one of Indonesia’s islands but only for an established period of time,” Zulkifli said on Friday, January 13, 2017.
He added that the islands must also never switch ownership.
Previously, the Coordinating Minister of Maritime Affairs, Luhut Binsar Panjaitan, granted Japan to manage and name an Indonesian island whether if they would like to use it as a location for investment.
“Japan asked if they could have one certain region for elderly. I then said go ahead and settle there but we would never sell the island,” Luhut said on Monday, January 9, 2017.
He revealed that Japan had even made plans to make Morotai Island, located in North Sulawesi, as one of their locations for investments.
Luhut has also offered other exotic islands to be managed by Japan, including handing them the authority to name the island.
There are 4,000 islands in Indonesia, according to Luhut, that are still anonymous. But it does not mean that the Indonesian government is downright selling the islands to foreign parties.
ANTARA