JAKARTA – The Palm Oil Agribusiness Strategic Policy Institute (PASPI) said that the government’s plan to establish a state-owned enterprise (SOE) for strategic commodity exports is aimed to tighten the governance of natural resource exports and at the same time prevent the leakage of foreign exchange earnings from exports (DHE), which are seen as not yet optimally contributing to national economic growth.
PASPI Executive Director, Dr. Tungkot Sipayung, stated that based on the latest information, the establishment of a SOE to handle strategic commodity exports, which are seen by a number of analysts as a form of nationalization of the natural resource-based export sector, is based on at least two major issues.
“First, the rampant practice of export manipulation, such as under-invoicing of prices, quality, volume, and smuggling in the export of natural resource-based products, including palm oil. According to government data, these practices had significantly reduced state revenues,” he told Sawit Indonesia on Thursday (21/05/2026).
He said that the second issue relates to foreign exchange earnings from exports (DHE), which are considered to have not yet had an optimal impact on the national economy. He stated that a large portion of such funds remain parked abroad or do not enter the national economic system.
“As a result, despite the large export value, the injection effect on the national economy is minimal, resulting in suboptimal economic growth and a continued weakening of the rupiah exchange rate due to the absence or minimal supply of US dollars from the export earnings,” he said.
Tungkot emphasized that the government believes the state must be present to address these two issues. The chosen form of state involvement is through the establishment of a state-owned enterprise (SOE) specialized on handling exports of strategic commodities.
Tungkot explained that the complete mechanism of the policy is still awaiting official government regulations. However, in general, export transactions are expected to go through designated state-owned enterprises and will no longer be conducted directly between exporters and foreign buyers.
“We still have to wait for the complete mechanism. But the point is, export transactions must go through these state-owned enterprises; they cannot be conducted directly between exporters and foreign buyers,” he said.
Tungkot acknowledged that changing the export system from the current practice to the new system has the potential to cause turmoil during the transition period. However, he emphasized that the policy is a direct presidential policy, referring to Article 33 of the 1945 Constitution and has been reported to the House of Representatives (DPR) as mandated by the Trade Law.
“As citizens, we have no choice but to comply and adapt,” he said.
Regarding concerns about the emergence of new monopolies in commodity export trading, Tungkot believes it is too early to draw conclusions. He believes the public needs to await the issuance of a Government Regulation (PP), implementing regulations at the ministerial level, and the working mechanism of the exporting state-owned enterprises.
He estimates that the government could implement various mechanisms, including a trading exchange system or other schemes that still involve business actors.
“We’ll have to wait and see whether the old business-to-business (B2B) mechanism will change to business-to-government-to-business (B2G2B), or whether it will remain B2B but under government supervision through state-owned enterprises,” he said.
Nevertheless, he believes that international palm oil buyers, Indonesia’s long-standing trading partners, will remain loyal.
In closing, Tungkot expressed his hope that the government has anticipated various potential issues during the policy transition period to prevent major disruptions in the national palm oil industry.
“We hope that the government, through the exporting state-owned enterprises, has anticipated these issues so that the transition process runs smoothly, with minimal disruption, under control, and without harming palm oil players, especially smallholders,” he said. (*)
Sawitindonesia.com. PASPI: Pelaku Sawit Perlu Adaptasi dengan Skema Baru Ekspor Terpusat BUMN. https://sawitindonesia.com/paspi-pelaku-sawit-perlu-adaptasi-dengan-skema-baru-ekspor-terpusat-bumn/. 21 Mei 2026
