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THE COORDINATING Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan stressed the need to adapt and see the potential for challenges that will be faced by the Indonesian economy in the future.
At the opening of the 2021 Capital Market Summit & Expo (CMSE) which was monitored online from Jakarta, Thursday (10/14), Minister Luhut Pandjaitan revealed a number of challenges that are currently and will be faced, including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and changes in geopolitical conditions.
“Economic conditions and the investment climate in Indonesia are facing a new era with great challenges that have never been faced before. First, the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, the threat of climate change, and thirdly, geopolitical changes, especially the competition between the two superpowers, China and America,” said Coordinating Minister Luhut.
He emphasized that Indonesia is too big to side with any power in the world today. Especially with the advantages of natural wealth, population and strategic position. This condition, according to him, allows Indonesia to play a very important role in the global arena.
“And we have proven in many ways that Indonesia is a very strong country and must be reckoned with by anyone in the world today,” Luhut stated.
Although there are other challenges that lie ahead, he invites all parties to adapt and always see the potential of each challenge faced.
Coordinating Minister Luhut believes that the Indonesian people can solve their own problems. In fact, he said that the achievements of other countries were not always better than their own. This is, for example, related to the handling of COVID-19 in the country, which many countries have praised.
“Once again, we have proven that, with the complex handling of COVID-19, Indonesia has been praised by many countries in the world, where at first we were harassed, bullied, by our own nation,” he remarked.
Minister Luhut who is also the Deputy Chair of the COVID-19 Handling and National Economic Recovery Team (KPC-PEN) said the experience of handling COVID-19 has proven that Indonesia is able to adapt. When the second wave of increasing cases of COVID-19 came last July, Indonesia’s condition was very worrying because the health system was at a threshold.
“There are so many criticisms against us, but facing this situation, the step of limiting people’s mobility is the only option that must be taken. As of July 3, the government implemented the Emergency Level
implementation of restrictions on community activities (PPKM) in Java-Bali with the aim of reducing community mobility so that daily cases can be suppressed and controlled. At the same time, it gives time for the government to improve health system facilities,” he noted.
In addition to teaching adaptation, Coordinating Minister Luhut continued, he also said that COVID-19 had taught how to see potential in the midst of difficulties. One of them is the potential for investment in the health sector to increase the limitations of the domestic health system.
“The limitations of the health system show that the investment potential in the domestic health sector is still very wide, both in terms of manufacturing pharmaceuticals and their raw materials, increasing the capacity of primary services such as health centers to tertiary ones such as health tourism,” he said.
Likewise, the trend of digitization that continues to grow due to the pandemic. Coordinating Minister Luhut hopes that the mindset related to adaptation and seeing one’s potential can also be applied to face other challenges in the future.
“As the largest nickel producer, Indonesia can become a player in EV batteries (electric vehicles) while countries are transforming towards zero emissions due to the threat of climate change. Indonesia also has the potential to benefit from carbon credits because it is one of the countries that has the largest forests and mangroves in the world. the world,” he finished. [antaranews/photo special]
