Image: @kangdede78/Twitter
The Minister of Maritime Affairs and Natural Resources of Indonesia will meet with Tesla CEO Elon Musk in early August. He intends to discuss the company's investment in the country. Indonesia is finalizing a package of incentives to attract EV producers to the country.
After months of hard work, the Indonesian government is finalizing a new set of incentives. The package is being developed to attract investment from electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers, a senior minister said on Tuesday. He added that the government is still in talks with big companies like Tesla and BYD, according to XM.
Speaking at a nickel industry conference hosted by CNBC Indonesia, Coordinating Minister of Maritime Affairs and Natural Resources Luhut Pandjaitan said the incentives will be benchmarked against those offered by regional rivals Thailand and Vietnam but did not provide details.
Indonesia is rich in nickel reserves, as it has the world's largest reserves of metal. It is an important component for the batteries that power electric vehicles. The country wants to take advantage of it, but it also needs to offer favorable conditions for doing business for companies. So far, Indonesia has been unable to do so, so the Chinese BYD decided to invest in Thailand instead. However, for Tesla, the situation may be different.
“Tomorrow we are going to finalize incentives that we are going to give to any EV investment in Indonesia,” Luhut said. He added that they were awaiting President Joko Widodo's approval.
Luhut also said he will meet with BYD leaders in the Chinese city of Chengdu on Thursday. In addition, he mentioned that he has a scheduled meeting with Tesla CEO Elon Musk on August 3 in California, USA. Indonesia has been courting Tesla for several years now. The country hopes to host an Asian manufacturing hub for the company. Rumors have repeatedly emanated that the company and Indonesia have already managed to agree. However, as of now, none of these rumors have been confirmed.
© 2023, Eva Fox | Tesmanian. All rights reserved.
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Article edited by @SmokeyShorts; follow him on Twitter
About the Author
Eva Fox
Eva Fox joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover breaking news as an automotive journalist. The main topics that she covers are clean energy and electric vehicles. As a journalist, Eva is specialized in Tesla and topics related to the work and development of the company.
