Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) are increasingly pursuing electric car manufacturer Tesla Inc from the United States to invest in Indonesia. Jokowi even sent the Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment, General TNI (Ret.) Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan to meet with Tesla executives.
“This is very important because we have big plans to make Indonesia the largest producer of lithium batteries and we have the largest nickel (reserves),” Jokowi said in an interview with Reuters published on Friday (13/11/2020).
Jokowi explained that the Indonesian Government would send a special team to the US and Japan to promote the omnibus law on the Job Creation Law. The team led by Luhut is tasked with inviting the US to continue choosing Indonesia as an investment destination.
Although he refused to comment specifically on the planned meeting with Tesla, Luhut said there was a very good opportunity because Tesla was investing in Indonesian nickel processing to cut costs.
Given the huge nickel potential in Indonesia, Luhut is rumored to be bringing up an important point regarding the contract, and Tesla is likely to get a giant contract for a long time.
On the other hand, Tesla boss Elon Reeve Musk once mentioned the name of Indonesia, especially regarding nickel reserves to support the battery industry. He once praised the nickel supply in Indonesia on 27 July 2020 through his Twitter account.
At that time there were discussions about the potential for lithium from many sources from several countries. Then the @spotted_model account asked about nickel reserves from Australia, Musk responded to, mentioning Indonesia.
“Nickel is the biggest challenge for high volume and long range batteries! Australia & Canada are doing quite well. US nickel production is objectively lame. Indonesia is very good!” tweeted Elon Musk while linking an article from Investing News about Indonesia’s nickel production reaching 800 thousand metric tons (MT).
However, Musk still closed meetings regarding news of plans to build a Tesla battery factory in Indonesia. Tesla has recently become a topic of talk about the news about the plan to build a battery factory in Batang, Central Java.
(roy/roy)
– .
