JAKARTA: President Prabowo Subianto wants more talent in Indonesia. Now he’s changing the rules to attract it.
On Friday (Aug 14), the president of the world’s fourth-most populous nation said he would propose changes to the law to allow dual citizenship for people with exceptional talents, including doctors, engineers, artificial intelligence specialists and athletes.
"We should not force Indonesia’s best and brightest” to choose between opportunities to work in the world and their ties to their homeland, Prabowo said in a speech to parliament outlining his budget plans for the coming year.
"Our citizenship policies will bring home the best talent from the diaspora and the finest talent from the Indonesian nation,” he added.
The proposal would mark a significant shift for Indonesia, which generally doesn’t allow adults to hold another nationality alongside Indonesian citizenship.
Prabowo said such status would be granted selectively to people who could make an "extraordinary contribution” to the national interest, with integrity checks and safeguards for national security.
Deputy Law Minister Edward Omar Sharif Hiariej later said the change could also apply to children born of mixed-nationality marriages or those born in countries that apply "ius soli” - citizenship acquired by being born in a country’s territory, regardless of their parents’ nationality. Such children can already hold limited dual citizenship under Indonesian law, but generally must choose one nationality as young adults.
Hiariej said the move could also apply to athletes and people with specialised talents who can help facilitate technology and knowledge transfer.
For athletes, the change could complement Indonesia’s existing strategy of naturalising soccer players of Indonesian descent to strengthen its national team.
Prabowo also floated bringing foreign doctors and dentists into Indonesia temporarily to address what he described as a severe shortage of medical workers.
Foreign medical specialists can already practice in Indonesia under restrictions, but Prabowo suggested making greater use of overseas doctors because training enough Indonesians would take time.
The approach isn’t about stopping Indonesians from going abroad. Earlier Friday, for instance, Prabowo highlighted the importance of Indonesians studying foreign languages and seeking higher-paying jobs overseas.
The same push extends to financial professionals and capital, as underscored by new details he unveiled about a proposed Indonesia Financial Center, or PFII, in Jakarta and Bali.
The hubs would seek to draw banking, insurance, capital markets, derivatives, carbon trading, bullion, fintech, family offices and investment-management activity that is often conducted in overseas financial centers.
PFII would be designed to attract both money and the people who manage it. Prabowo said "the best legal talent from Indonesia and the world” could act as judges, with contracts written in English under international commercial law principles. That would help attract "top financial talent” to activities including family offices, carbon trading and banking, he said.
The centres would also offer qualifying businesses tax facilities, golden visas and assurances over the transfer and repatriation of capital and profits.
"We are establishing PFII so that global capital can find certainty in Indonesia,” and so that "the best talent works in Indonesia,” he said.
The push for expertise fits with Prabowo’s broader ambition for Indonesia to wield more influence over the global economy rather than simply supply it. In another proposal Friday, he called for a domestic exchange that would help establish reference prices for the vast quantities of palm oil, nickel, tin and coal the country ships around the world.
"We must become a price setter for the world’s commodities,” Prabowo said.
"We are not simply building an economy that is large in the statistics,” Prabowo said.
"We are building a country that is sovereign in its decisions, fair in its distribution, and tangible in the lives of its people.” -Bloomberg.
