Indonesia foregoing billions in investment, says US

JAKARTA: Indonesia is foregoing billions of dollars on offer from American companies eager to invest in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, said United States ambassador to Indonesia, Joseph Donovan.

As the US tries to arrest a deteriorating trade balance with Indonesia, which last year found itself in President Donald Trump’s cross-hairs, Donovan rejected complaints of increasing American protectionism.

Indonesia had made significant progress on macroeconomic stability, improving the business environment, education and infrastructure, yet more must be done to encourage trade as well as foreign investment, he said.

“Those that caution the US about being trade protectionist, I would respectfully suggest that they look at their own markets and they might find a good deal of ingrained protectionism there,” he said here.

Indonesian officials such as Finance Minister Sri Mulyani In- drawati have consistently criticised the protectionist tone sounded by Trump, who last year accused a host of nations, including Indonesia, of potentially abusing their trade relationship with the world’s biggest economy.

Since then, the US trade deficit with Indonesia has worsened to US$13.3 billion (RM51.8 billion) from US$13.2 billion in 2016, according to the US Census Bureau.

“The current protectionist language is definitely going to create concern about whether globally there will be a setback in the progress that has been made over the past three decades,” said Mulyani.

Indonesia must do more to encourage foreign businesses to invest and trade, said Donovan.

“Indonesia is leaving billions of dollars on the table right now in the field of power generation by not following through on offers by American companies,” he said.