The presidential election is over and the incumbent president of Indonesia, Joko Widodo,known familiarly as ‘Jokowi’, has officially been re-elected as the President of The Republic of Indonesia for the 2019-2024 term.

In his election campaign, Jokowi declared nine missions, from which we know that his 2nd-term administration’s target in the Rule of Law area for the next five years is to ensure a corruption/illegal levies-free, dignified and reliable legal system, through among other measures, continuing the reform of the legal system and law enforcement and making sure that there is no conflict between the laws and regulations as well as deregulating certain areas as necessary.

Boosting investment and simplifying bureaucracy

Through his previous term’s program, Jokowi was determined to improve the investment climate and ease of doing business in Indonesia by simplifying regulations related to investment. In 2017, Jokowi issued Presidential Regulation No. 91 of 2017 on The Acceleration of Business Implementation (PR 91/2017) through which he introduced the Online Single Submission (OSS) licensing system. Later, Government Regulation No. 24 of 2018 (GR 24/2018) on Integrated Electronic Licensing Services for Business was issued as the implementing regulation of PR 91/2017.

The OSS system was a breakthrough online based program, aimed at unifying the licensing system through an online one-stop service. Previously, investors had to manually hand deliver applications to different institutions or ministries for their business licenses and it could take weeks or even longer. Now, through the OSS system, it is expected that investors can obtain a license within 2 hours of submitting the application online. Therefore, investors can now save time and money when starting up a business. The OSS system should also help to minimize corruption by reducing bureaucracy. For these reasons, the OSS system is expected to boost both domestic and foreign direct investment in Indonesia.

Written by Vincent Ariesta Lie, Yohanes Masengi, and Hilda Leswara, read about what to expect in terms of investment, bureaucracy, and infrastructure, among others, in this link.