Jakarta – President Prabowo Subianto announced a new government regulation aimed at tightening oversight of Indonesia’s natural resource exports, while reaffirming that the country’s resource wealth must be managed for the benefit of the public in line with Article 33 of the 1945 Constitution.
Speaking during a plenary session at the House of Representatives in Jakarta, Prabowo said the government had issued a regulation on the governance of natural resource commodity exports that would require export sales of selected commodities to be conducted through state-owned enterprises appointed as sole exporters, the State Secretariat reported on its website on Wednesday, May 20.
The policy will initially cover three strategic commodities: crude palm oil, coal, and ferro alloys. According to the President, the designated state-owned firms would function as a “marketing facility,” forwarding export proceeds to the respective business operators.
Prabowo said the measure was intended to strengthen monitoring of export activities and curb practices such as under-invoicing, transfer pricing, and the offshore flight of export earnings.
“The policy will optimise tax revenues and state income from the management and sale of our natural resources,” he said.
The President framed the regulation as part of a broader effort to implement Article 33 of the Constitution, which states that land, water, and natural resources are controlled by the state and utilised for the greatest prosperity of the people.
Prabowo said Indonesia’s founding fathers had already laid out the blueprint for a just and prosperous economy through the constitutional provision. He argued that consistent implementation of Article 33 would provide sufficient national resources to improve public welfare and living standards.
“Our people do not dream of becoming extremely wealthy,” Prabowo said. “They dream of living properly, eating well every day, buying milk for their children, accessing medicine when family members are sick, and having decent housing and education.”
He also called on political leaders and institutions to confront structural economic problems and pursue reforms despite resistance and challenges.
The President compared Indonesia’s new export governance approach to policies adopted by several resource-rich countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Russia, Malaysia, and Vietnam, which he said had successfully leveraged natural resources to finance education, healthcare, infrastructure, and sovereign wealth funds.
Prabowo stressed that Indonesia must no longer remain merely a supplier of raw materials or a market for foreign products. In a broader economic address delivered at the same parliamentary session, he reiterated the importance of industrialisation and downstream processing to strengthen national self-reliance.
“We must build our own cars, motorcycles, televisions, computers, and mobile phones,” he said. “We cannot only become a market for other nations.” (nsh)
Banner photo: Ministry of State Secretariat of the Republic of Indonesia.
