Stefani Ribka, Jakarta – The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) and the US-ASEAN Business Council signed on Tuesday a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for a collaboration that aims to improve Indonesia's investment climate
The agreement will be followed up by the placement of a US-ASEAN Business council representative in Indonesia, who will work with Kadin to identify problems faced by United States companies in Indonesia.
"We will have our senior country director here and also a representative of Kadin to get together on [a] regular basis just to talk about what kind of issues [US companies are facing and] to advocate on these points," council senior vice president Michael W. Michalak told reporters after the signing ceremony.
US direct investment in Indonesia increased by 23.1 percent annually to reach US$1.1 billion in 2016, and this year's figure is expected to exceed that, with the US already investing $968.8 million in the archipelago so far, data from the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) shows.
Amongst US firms attending the signing ceremonies are food trader Cargill, beverage maker Coca Cola, finance services giant VISA, Citibank, oil and gas firms ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, mobile chip maker Qualcomm, computer networking company Cisco and cloud provider Amazon Web Services, all of which are present in Indonesia and or ASEAN. (bbn)