Prabowo Drives $15.9B Resource Overhaul With Direct Plan to Dominate Global Commodity Pricing

JAKARTA, Investortrust.id — President Prabowo Subianto has unveiled a sweeping plan to launch a centralized domestic exchange for minerals and strategic commodities by January 1, 2027, taking direct aim at foreign trading hubs that have dictated the value of Southeast Asia's resource wealth for decades.

Speaking before a plenary session of the House of Representatives (DPR) during the 2027 State Budget presentation in Jakarta on Friday, the head of state declared that the new trading platform will operate under the direct oversight of the Financial Services Authority (OJK), the country's primary financial markets watchdog.

Indonesia is the world’s dominant supplier of mined nickel, a leading exporter of thermal coal and palm oil, and a top-tier producer of refined tin, copper, and bauxite. By constructing its own onshore trading architecture, Jakarta is seeking to seize global price discovery from incumbent trading centers in London, Rotterdam, and Singapore, forcing multinational commodity traders to settle contracts according to Indonesian benchmark pricing.

Ending Price-Taker Vulnerability

For decades, domestic producers have extracted trillions of rupiah in raw materials and refined metals while remaining entirely vulnerable to international benchmark volatility set in consumer nations that possess zero domestic production of the underlying assets.

Prabowo sharply questioned the underlying logic of global commodity supply chains that leave resource-rich emerging markets at the mercy of foreign exchanges.

"Our goods, our wealth, which come from the earth and the sweat of the Indonesian people, have their prices determined abroad," Prabowo told lawmakers during his parliamentary address on Friday.

The President stressed that this strategic pivot does not mean abandoning open market dynamics. Instead, the administration intends to build a deep, liquid, and fully transparent marketplace anchored in physical domestic supply.

"We do not merely want to be a global commodity producer," Prabowo declared. "We must participate in determining world commodity prices."

Tackling Misinvoicing and Trade Leakages

The exchange marks the second phase of Jakarta's single-window export governance overhaul, following the operational launch of PT Danantara Sumber Daya Indonesia (DSI), a specialized state entity established to monitor commodity export trade flows.

While DSI operates as a real-time data-matching hub to verify physical cargo weights, export declarations, and foreign exchange receipts, the upcoming bourse will manage open order matching and price discovery.

Integrating the trading bourse with DSI's oversight systems is designed to eliminate systemic transfer pricing abuses and under-invoicing, where multinational exporters artificially record discounted sales prices to shift taxable corporate profits into low-tax foreign jurisdictions.

Transparent benchmark transactions will provide immediate reference data for tax authorities, ensuring accurate royalty assessments and foreign exchange repatriation while enhancing the bargaining leverage of domestic miners and smallholder agricultural producers.

Broadening the Downstreaming Mandate

The creation of an onshore commodity bourse fundamentally expands Indonesia's multi-billion-dollar industrial downstreaming agenda. Policymakers have realized that capturing value-add cannot end at building domestic processing smelters and refineries.

Significant economic value has historically leaked into offshore hubs through trade finance facilities, marine insurance underwriting, clearing operations, and derivative hedging contracts.

By requiring strategic commodities to trade across a domestically supervised exchange, Jakarta aims to anchor liquidity within the domestic banking sector, complementing related initiatives such as the newly formed national Bullion Bank (Bank Emas) and the ongoing demutualization of the Indonesia Stock Exchange.

"The important thing is that the exchange is located in the Republic of Indonesia," Prabowo emphasized to parliament. "Indonesia will stop being a land where commodities are simply dug up, while the prices and profits are determined by other countries."

Overcoming Market Liquidity and Credibility Hurdles

Transforming a national trading floor into an internationally accepted reference benchmark presents formidable market challenges that regulatory decrees alone cannot solve.

Global commercial buyers and institutional trading desks rely on incumbent bourses because of deep liquidity pools, seamless clearing operations, trusted warehouse receipt networks, and decades of legal predictability.

To succeed where previous regional commodity exchanges have struggled, the OJK and market authorities must secure international trading participation, implement world-standard trade dispute mechanisms, and prevent artificial domestic price distortions.

If executed successfully, the January 2027 rollout will mark a definitive turning point in global resource trade, cementing Indonesia's transition from a volume-supplying price taker to an influential price maker on the international stage.