Week 1 Video Project - Andrean Rendra

Indonesia is one of the world's leading mineral exporters, from gold, silver, to coal, lead, copper aluminium and even not though not much, Uranium. The "UU Minerba" which was ratified in 2009 and effective as of January 2014 will see that minerals are smelted, refined to 99% in this country, although good for the local economy, this move is seen as prohibitive to free trade supporters in this country and worldwide. Indonesian Mining companies are even shocked by this sudden and rapid change, because by not selling the minerals they mined to other states they will surely lose profits because local buyers offer a lot less money for the same amount of minerals that used to be exported abroad. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/indonesia/berita_indonesia/2013/12/131225_rawmineralexportban_bisnis.shtml)

In my opinion the UU Minerba needs to be changed or even better removed immediately because not only because of its devastating effects towards the global economy, if our local mining companies lost profits in the end this will ultimately lead to their bankruptcy. not only that, UU Minerba is too strict because it bans all exports altogether. a sudden and rapid change will lead to global shortages, and may cause tensions, conflicts and even recession. this sudden and rapid change would also be disastrous for our local young and unprepared smelting industries, that have no experience in smelting and refining minerals. it is to be hoped that UU minerba be revised, especially on the "ban all exports" policy, instead they could limit exports to a certain amount of levels, so not only that this will give a chance for our smelting industries to grow up, but Indonesian mining companies will retain profits and avoid global shortages altogether.

so in conclusion we need at least one expert on this particular subject to provide answers such as, what benefit could this UU minerba brings us? is it worth the price and risk? if UU minerba proved to be disastrous, what could be done by our government to cope with the losses?