Plantations Bill Indonesia: No Further Limit to Foreign Ownership
Indonesia’s House of Representatives (DPR) has passed a new plantations bill that aims to maximize land usage and opens up Indonesia’s plantation sector to smallholders. However, the retroactive clause that would limit foreign ownership to a maximum of 30 percent (from 95 percent currently) was dropped from the final version. This clause was highly controversial and would have been a major obstacle for foreign companies engaged in Indonesia’s plantation sector (such as Golden Agri-Resources and Wilmar International).