We Don’t Need State-Owned Hotels

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Minister of Defense and presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto said that state-owned companies no longer need to be in the hotel business.

Prabowo expressed this when attending the Mandiri Investment Forum 2024 at the Fairmont Hotel, Jakarta, Tuesday (5/3/2024). The event was also attended by BUMN Minister Erick Thohir.

“We don’t need state-owned hotels. What do you think, Mr Erick (Minister of BUMN)? But I ask for your advice. I want to take a sensible approach, I want to get as much advice as possible from anywhere, and I want the best input. ” Prabowo said in his speech.

According to Prabowo, Indonesia is open to investment from anywhere. He also plans to provide space for the private sector to run business in Indonesia.

“If there are no strategic reasons, maybe we should have a rationalization program and privatize many state-owned companies,” he said.

According to Prabowo, the state can make regulations and carry out monitoring. Apart from that, the country can also make strategic decisions.

“Basically, I don’t see any examples of why we (the state) need to be present in every economic sector. I think tourism in the 50s had to be a pioneer. But now we have to provide space for the private sector to dominate more,” he explained.

Responding to this, Erick said that previously every BUMN had a hotel. “Now in my time, hotels are consolidated into one umbrella, namely 122 hotels,” he said.

Erick also said that while leading the Ministry of BUMN, he had carried out a transformation by simplifying the number of state-owned companies.

For information, in 2021, the Indonesian government has 108 BUMN. Then now it has been reduced to 41 entities. In the long term, the government targets the number of BUMN to be around 30 entities.

[Gambas:Video CNBC]

(mkh/mkh)