Minister of Transmigration M. Iftitah Sulaiman Suryanagara met with Minister of Investment and Downstream/Head of the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) Rosan Perkasa Roeslani on Monday, November 18, 2024, discussing strategic collaborative measures to develop economic potential in transmigration areas.
In the meeting, the Minister of Transmigration outlined opportunities for collaboration that could be carried out by the two ministries, especially in economic development in transmigration regions.
“We are a rich ministry because we control around 153 transmigration regions throughout Indonesia. Of those 153 regions, we have management rights of around 3.1 million hectares of land. We want to empower the land, not only to be utilized by transmigrants, but also for the sake of new economic development,” Iftitah said as quoted in a statement on Tuesday, November 19, 2024.
Rosan said the synergy between the two ministries could provide benefits for labor absorption, which in turn could have an impact on improving people’s welfare.
“How we can synergize in land utilization, in terms of labor deployment … this is the most important thing. The potential owned by the Ministry of Transmigration in the forms of land and labor can be strengthened by bringing in investors,” he said.
The two ministers also agreed on efforts to improve labor skills in transmigration areas.
“One of our strengths is labor, but in some places they are still unskilled and untrained. There is indeed a commitment to improve their skills, even there is an idea of technology transfer and knowledge transfer,” Iftitah said.
Meanwhile, Rosan said that investors operating in transmigration areas will be encouraged to prioritize the use of local labor and contribute to improving labor skills during the development process.
“We always demand a commitment from investors to progressively use local labor, from initial construction to operations. As an example, the construction of a factory takes two years. Well, we have asked the investors to upskill and reskill the workers in the area for two years starting from construction until completion,” he concluded.
