Jakarta, IO – On 20 May 2026, President Prabowo Subianto formally issued a Government Regulation on the Governance of Natural Resource Commodity Exports, followed by the establishment of PT Danantara Sumberdaya Indonesia (DSI) as a stateowned enterprise dedicated to strategic commodity exports.
In a recent development, the Government has officially postponed the full implementation of transferring coal, nickel, palm oil, and copper exports to DSI from the originally scheduled 1 September 2026, to 1 January 2027.
Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto stated that the Government is providing a transitional space for business actors to continue their export activities, using their existing schemes and trading partners. This postponement itself sends a clear signal: the complexity of execution of the new governance framework runs deeper than initially assumed.
For decades, natural resource exports have flowed through networks of corporations, traders, long-term contracts, foreign affiliates, and pricing mechanisms – ones that have not always been fully transparent to the state. The Government is now attempting to reclaim strategic control, under a unified national governance framework — to strengthen state revenues, close gaps in under-invoicing and transfer pricing, secure export proceeds, and ensure that natural wealth does not merely flow out as trading volume, but returns as economic value for the nation.
The stakes are enormous. Reuters reported that Indonesia’s palm oil, coal, and nickel exports last year were valued at approximately US$65 billion, contributing 25 percent of total national exports in 2025. Indonesia is a major global player in thermal coal, palm oil, and strategic minerals markets. Volumes of this magnitude are too significant to operate without systematic oversight of pricing, contracts, payments, and foreign exchange flows.
World Bank data, cited by Investment Minister and Danantara CEO Rosan Roeslani, reveals the high prevalence of under-invoicing and transfer pricing practices that have eroded state revenues for years. Indonesia exemplifies the resource curse paradox — rich in resources, yet weak in converting that wealth into sustainable fiscal and industrial capacity.
Geopolitically, Indonesia’s move comes at a sensitive moment. The world is entering an era of resource competition: energy, food, critical minerals, and industrial raw materials are no longer merely economic commodities but instruments of geopolitical power. China needs coal, nickel, and palm oil supplies for its industries and domestic consumption. The United States and Europe are competing for access to strategic minerals for green technology supply chains.
The experiences of other countries offer valuable lessons. China manages its strategic export functions through an interconnected ecosystem of state-owned enterprises and government agencies: COFCO for food commodities, Sinochem for chemicals and energy, China Minmetals and Chinalco for metals and minerals, alongside Sinosure and China Eximbank for export financing and insurance.
Sinosure specifically promotes exports of goods, technology, and services through export credit insurance This model demonstrates that strategic exports are not left entirely to market mechanisms, but are guided by the state through industrial coordination, financing, trade diplomacy and control over global supply chains.
Norway manages its hydrocarbon resources through a combination of Equinor – as a state enterprise – stringent regulation, and the Government Pension Fund Global: this happens to be the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, valued at US$2.2 trillion, considered the gold standard of global governance. Both models illustrate one common principle: economic sovereignty over resources only succeeds when supported by accountable, professional, and transparent institutions.
DSI will only be optimal if built as a modern institution, one oriented toward both economic sovereignty and market efficiency. Five challenges await. First, certainty of long-term contract schemes. Major global buyers — Indian palm oil refiners, Chinese steel mills, Japanese and Korean power plants — are accustomed to multi-year contracts with exporters they have known for decades. Migrating all contracts to a new entity with no commercial track record is not an overnight process.
Second, price-setting mechanisms. Global markets have established price discovery: palm oil at Bursa Malaysia Derivatives, coal at ICE Newcastle and Argus, ferroalloy at Fastmarkets. DSI must choose: become a price taker following these benchmarks, or build a domestic reference price. If pricing is set behind closed doors, the policy will instead create new spaces for rent-seeking. South Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang reminds us that state intervention only succeeds when the state possesses bureaucratic capacity and industrial discipline — without these, intervention easily becomes distortion.
Third, payment systems and foreign exchange. Placing export proceeds in domestic banking represents a continuation of the DHE SDA policy under Government Regulations No. 2/2026 and No. 21/2026 — which will strengthen domestic banking liquidity. However, the system must remain compatible with global practices: letters of credit, escrow accounts, deferred payments, foreign exchange hedging, and trade finance.
Fourth, shipping logistics and operations. Managing hundreds of cargoes monthly across dozens of countries demands maritime risk management, cargo insurance, demurrage handling, and port coordination on a scale never before handled by a single Indonesian entity.
Fifth — and most sensitive — the position of exporters and traders who have long been part of the global trading chain. Global players possess distribution networks, buyer relationships, and trade finance access that cannot be easily replicated. They must be transformed into execution partners of DSI, not eliminated.
Joseph Stiglitz, recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, in “Making Globalization Work” (2006), wrote that resource-rich countries that have successfully escaped the resource curse all share three characteristics: accountable management institutions, transparent and fair contracts, and the placement of windfall revenues into long-term productive investments.
Botswana, through Debswana in partnership with De Beers, stands as Africa’s success story for the state-trader partnership model. In contrast, Venezuela with its PDVSA, serves as a cautionary tale, a locale where centralization buried efficiency and ignored commercial professionalism.
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In “Escaping the Resource Curse” Stiglitz and Macartan Humphreys affirmed four pillars of successful state trading models: separation of ownership and professional management, independent auditing by national audit bodies and global accounting firms, contract transparency through public platforms, and competitive contract mechanisms with international price benchmarks. Without these four pillars, export centralization can instead create new rent-seeking — the same problem as the old model, merely in different hands.
The most feasible model is to build a national export governance platform, with DSI as the controller of data, contract standardization, price validation, and foreign exchange compliance, while business actors continue performing production, marketing, logistics, and buyer service functions. The strategic question is sharp: can Indonesia build economic sovereignty without damaging market credibility? DSI must stand in the middle: strong as a state instrument, agile as a market actor, and professional as a global corporation.
That is where economic sovereignty finds its ideal form: not simply taking over, but restructuring so that the economic value of natural resources truly returns to the state treasury and the welfare of the people. The postponement of full implementation to 1 January 2027 is not a sign of failure but a golden opportunity to build an architecture – one that is truly ready.
