The Indonesian government has clarified that the new management policy for strategic natural resource exports does not amount to a blanket ban on private sector export activities. While the policy envisions a centralized export management model under state-owned export enterprises, the regulations include waiver channels for qualifying business entities, allowing some non-state-owned enterprises to continue exporting. The relevant details are set out in Trade Ministerial Regulation No. 17 of 2026, which regulates exports of strategic mineral resources such as ferroalloys and serves as an implementing regulation for Government Regulation No. 24 of 2026. The government regulation uniformly adjusts the export management system for a number of key national resource commodities, including palm oil, coal, and ferroalloys, with the core direction being that state-owned export enterprises will lead export channels.
The Director of Industrial and Mining Product Exports at the Ministry of Trade explained the policy waiver threshold on June 9. Non-state-owned export enterprises that have signed formal contracts with the government, which include binding provisions such as minimum investment, equity divestment, and domestic processing and refining, may conduct independent ferroalloy exports without being subject to the state-owned monopoly. This waiver rule was determined through a coordination meeting chaired by the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs and attended by the heads of various ministries and independent agencies. The general policy rule is that, in principle, all strategic natural resource exports must be conducted through government-designated state-owned export enterprises in the future, but the ferroalloy category has an additional exception mechanism to preserve overseas trade channels for compliant private enterprises.
However, obtaining waiver status does not mean being free from regulatory oversight. Non-state-owned enterprises granted independent export rights must still comply with all existing export regulations, including the mandatory submission of survey reports issued by third-party inspection agencies and completion of official technical verification and traceability checks. The government has designed the waiver provisions to balance industrial investment and centralized control. On one hand, state-owned platforms coordinate resource exports to increase national revenue; on the other, the government avoids a one-size-fits-all shutdown of private export businesses, leaving room for enterprises that have fulfilled responsibilities such as local deep processing and large-scale investment, while maintaining full-process regulatory control through the third-party survey reporting system to achieve standardized management of resource exports.
Written by Cora Ji, jiruyan@mysteel.com
