One of the biggest tech companies in Japan, SoftBank, looks forward to investing in Indonesia. (Image via: Kompas.com)

Jokowi to Meet CEO of SoftBank in August

Alfonsus Adi Putra
Market & Investment
New Investment
Jul 19, 2019
2416
From its investment in Tokopedia and Grab, Indonesia is looking for more partnership with Japanese telecommunication company, SoftBank Corp. To negotiate things, the president of Indonesia himself, Joko Widodo – generally known as Jokowi – is going to meet with the CEO of SoftBank, Masatoshi Son. The meeting was scheduled for the upcoming August.

The meeting was confirmed by the Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs of Indonesia, Luhut Binsar Panjaitan. Luhut said that the meeting is held on either 12 or 14 August.

SoftBank has a subsidiary called SoftBank Vision Fund focusing on investing its capital in start-up companies. With the valuation of approximately US$100 billion, the coordinating minister revealed the fact that Masatoshi is coming to Indonesia, and upon his arrival, Indonesia would love to offer several promising projects for SoftBank Vision Fund.

However, regarding the details of the projects to be offered, Luhut did not clarify further about it. Luhut only stated his wish that the start-up-friendly company would be willing to invest its money in Indonesia’s agricultural and maritime companies such as Aruna and FishOn, hoping that the 2 companies will become the new Indonesian unicorns.

Meanwhile, Aruna had already got an investment from major financial technology (fintech) company from China, Alipay, as a prize for winning a social innovation competition held by Alipay and NUS Enterprise.

For now, SoftBank has funded 4 Indonesian start-up companies such as Tokopedia, Ajaib, Alodokter, and CoHive. Ajaib deals with shares investment, Alodokter deals with the health sector, and CoHive deals with the provision of co-working space. SoftBank Vision Fund invested US$1.1 billion in Tokopedia as a joint investment with Alibaba Group.

Regarding Grab, Luhut stated his request for Grab to move its headquarter from Singapore to Jakarta. For the sake of dual-listing, said he. SoftBank Vision Fund inserted about US$1.46 trillion into the Singaporean decacorn’s pocket. By the huge investment, Grab bravely wages war against GoJek by stating that it is looking forward to investing more in Indonesia.

Source: https://finance.detik.com/berita-ekonomi-bisnis/d-4608090/jokowi-ketemu-bos-softbank-bulan-depan-bahas-apa

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