Indonesia is stopping mineral exports so that they can refine them in country, and also create industries that use the metals in country.
The IMF doesn’t like that.
via asiatimes
JAKARTA – Indonesia is under rising fire at the World Trade Organization and by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the government’s seemingly haphazard policy of banning mineral ore exports, a market intervention Jakarta insists is just and necessary to maximize its economic and industrial growth.
In a sharply worded statement accompanying its 2022 country report, the IMF called for Indonesia to phase out the restrictions and not extend them to other commodities. “The increasing use of trade measures and industrial policies may destabilize the multilateral trade system,” the IMF said.
The Joko Widodo administration has so far been unyielding, insisting that Indonesia is well within its rights to add value to its minerals, specifically nickel, bauxite, copper and tin, to become a newly industrialized state.
Economic Coordinating Minister Airlangga Hartarto has described efforts by developed nations and international organizations to push for controls on other countries’ export policies as a form of modern-day colonialism that will inhibit Indonesia’s economic growth and development.
Back in the United States colonial period England forbade the colonies from manufacturing products. All raw materials produced in the colonies had to be exported to England where they were made into profitable products.
This stuff still goes on today, all under the watchful eyes of the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund.
h/t Doctor Congo