Indonesia is pushing for cooperation between Indonesia and Australia to develop the production of electric vehicle batteries. Even though Indonesia has raw materials for production, collaboration with other parties is still very much needed.
This was conveyed by the Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment (Menko Marves) Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan. He is pushing for cooperation between Indonesia and Australia.
Luhut said, although Indonesia is rich in nickel resources, this has not been able to make Indonesia the king of the world’s electric vehicle batteries due to the unavailability of lithium, which incidentally is the main ingredient for the development of the EV battery industry. For this reason, he considered that collaboration with other parties was needed to make it happen.
As a lithium-producing country, Australia expressed its support for making Indonesia one of the world’s lithium battery producers. The two countries also plan to jointly develop the electric vehicle (EV) battery industry while remaining responsible for environmental factors.
“In this momentum, I also invited several State-Owned Enterprises [BUMN] in the mineral resources sector to meet and explore directly the potential for cooperation with lithium entrepreneurs in Kangaroo Country,” Luhut said in his official statement, Tuesday (14/2/ 2023).
Luhut added, Indonesia is starting to focus on transforming into high-value-added industries, such as the energy transition sector. One form of this is the battery-based electric motor vehicle industry (KBLBB).
According to him, the key factor for the resilience of the Indonesian economy in 2022 is the development of the downstream mineral industry with high added value.
According to him, Indonesia is one of the countries that has grown strongly in difficult conditions affected by the global economy compared to 18 countries and 1 other region that are members of the G20.
