Jakarta ( WNAM MONITORING): Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has criticized a number of domestic business figures for continuing to keep their capital and business proceeds overseas despite benefiting from various government incentives.
“We grant mining concessions, plantation concessions, and provide loans from state-owned banks—banks owned by the people—but once they succeed, their profits are not placed in Indonesia,” President Prabowo said in a broadcast on the State Secretariat’s YouTube channel in Jakarta on Wednesday.
The president stressed that he would not allow the outflow of national wealth abroad to persist under his administration.
He said that the country’s natural resources and economic strength should remain in the hands of the nation so that their benefits can be directly enjoyed by the Indonesian people.
Prabowo also urged business leaders and investors to uphold strong nationalism and not treat Indonesia merely as a source of profit extraction.
“The Indonesian nation does not want to become someone else’s field or plantation. We want Indonesia’s wealth to remain in the hands of and be enjoyed by the Indonesian people,” he said.
He added that he would not tolerate individuals lacking a sense of patriotism within his administration if they prioritize foreign interests over national ones.
The criticism comes amid the government’s commitment to accelerating its downstream industrialization program as a key pathway toward greater prosperity and economic sovereignty.
President Prabowo also symbolically launched 13 second-phase downstream projects in Cilacap, Central Java, with a total investment value of Rp116 trillion.
The initiative marks the start of construction for several strategic facilities in the energy, mineral, and agricultural sectors. The projects include the development of gasoline refineries in Cilacap and Dumai, as well as a coal-to-dimethyl ether (DME) processing facility in Tanjung Enim.
During the event, the government outlined the scope of projects to be carried out in parallel, involving several major state-owned enterprises such as Pertamina, MIND ID, Krakatau Steel, and PTPN.
The groundbreaking ceremony also marks the beginning of an integrated downstream development effort aimed at accelerating investment realization and the growth of value-added industries in Indonesia.
