JAKARTA (Reuters) -Indonesia’s foreign direct investment in the first three months of 2025 reached 230.4 trillion rupiah ($13.67 billion), up around 12.7% year-on-year in rupiah terms, investment minister Rosan Roeslani said on Wednesday.
While the growth pace remained solid, it was the slowest in five quarters, according to LSEG data. The FDI data excludes investment in the financial and oil and gas sectors.
Total investment, including from domestic investors, stood at 465.2 trillion rupiah, up 15.9% year-on-year, creating more than 594,000 jobs.
“This shows that the international world and domestic investors are still confident to invest, because an investment is a long term commitment,” Rosan told a press conference, adding global market uncertainty due to geopolitical and trade tensions were influencing investment decisions.
Southeast Asia’s largest economy has seen rising foreign investor interests in the mining and metal smelting industries after it banned exports of nickel ore in 2020.
But news of the exit of South Korea’s LG Energy Solution from a major electric vehicle battery project worth more than $8 billion has grabbed headlines this week.
LGES said on Monday it has decided to withdraw from the project citing various factors, including market conditions and investment environment.
Rosan, however, said Indonesia in January had sent a letter to LG Group executives terminating the deal because LG had taken too long to realise the project, which had been agreed in late 2020 and include investments across the EV battery supply chain.
China’s Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt will replace LGES as a strategic investor in the project, Rosan said, echoing an earlier statement by Indonesia’s energy minister Bahlil Lahadalia. Huayou’s Indonesian unit did not respond to request for comment.
The biggest sources of FDI in the first quarter were Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Malaysia and Japan, Rosan said.
($1 = 16,860.0000 rupiah)
(Reporting by Stefanno Sulaiman and Gayatri Suroyo; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Chizu Nomiyama )
