From Nikkei Asia, January 22:
Indonesia election race heats up over Jokowi's nickel strategy
Gibran defends father's industrialization push that rival slams as 'reckless'
Indonesia's vice presidential candidates representing their tickets zeroed in on President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's nickel industry strategy in a debate on Sunday night ahead of the upcoming presidential election on Feb. 14.
The official debate, fourth of the five-part series, highlighted topics of sustainable development, natural resources and food security, featuring VP hopefuls Gibran Rakabuming, Mohammad Mahfud MD and Muhaimin Iskandar. They are running mates of Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, former Central Java Gov. Ganjar Pranowo and former Jakarta Gov. Anies Baswedan, respectively.
Jokowi has implemented what he calls nickel "downstreaming" -- an initiative to build a domestic processing value chain for the mineral as demand grows for electric vehicle battery materials.
Nickel smelters controlled by Chinese companies have proliferated in Indonesia in recent years. But their operations have drawn scrutiny on the environmental impact and more recently on workers' safety, as an explosion of a smelter at a major nickel industrial complex on Sulawesi Island in December reportedly killed 21 people, mostly locals.
"We're witnessing how downstreaming is being done recklessly in the mining ... business, damaging the environment, causing accidents, with foreign workers dominating," Iskandar said....
....MUCH MORE
Getting the exploitation of the resource right is a pretty big deal. We have quite a few previous links in "Nickel shows Indonesia how to escape the middle income trap"
