Mekar News

Investing in Indonesia: 10 Benefits and Challenges, with a Spotlight on Impact Investing

Arghea Desafti Hapsari
By Thierry.sanders@mekar.id

Foreign investors contemplating to invest in Indonesia will see a large population, a wealth of natural resources and stable economic growth.

The sceptical investor reading the news will see one natural disaster after another; will stumble on the occasional terrorist attack; and may be worried by the seemingly religious intolerance. The reality is that on a daily basis, running a business, these three issues are relatively insignificant.

Few foreign investors know that Indonesia’s economy has shown the most stable growth of any economy globally since the second world war; the consuming middle class of Indonesia is set to grow by 90 million people over the next 12 years; there are now 103 million millennials born between 1975 and 1998; or that it is now the largest digital economy of South East Asia.

The timing for (impact) investing in Indonesia could not be better than it is today.

I decided to write this article because several investors and government officials have asked for my advice on the challenges of investing as a foreign investor into Indonesian SMEs. These insights come from my meandering experience of having worked in Indonesia for almost 5 years, together with Putera Sampoerna, one of Indonesia’s most respected businessmen. During those years, I have started but also discontinued several business ventures, managed a turn-around and set up a Fintech company (MEKAR.id) to provide micro financing to small businesses in Indonesia.

So here it is…happy reading!

SUMMARY

For those of you short on reading time, here’s a summary. The rest can be found in more detail below.

10 reasons to invest in Indonesia:

10 challenges facing foreign investors

10 REASONS TO INVEST IN INDONESIA

Economic growth and monetary stability

Indonesia is one of 5 countries that grew its GDP at or over 5% last year, of the 47 countries listed on The Economist magazine’s weekly country indicators chart. In fact Indonesia has had the most consistent economic growth of any economy since the second world war. Although 5% growth is far below the growth target of the current government, it is still growing faster and more consistently than most. The stable growth of the Indonesian economy is, like the USA, China and India, thanks to the huge domestic market of 267 million people, the 4th largest country in the world by population. Indonesia’s economy is set to move from 9th largest economy today to 4th largest by 2050.

The Indonesian Central Bank is doing a great job at managing the money supply. Among bankers, the memory of the Asian financial crisis in 1997/98 is still fresh. Banks, the central bank and the financial services authority have done a great job at managing the currency and maintaining regulatory oversight over banks, resulting in banks that have some of the highest return on assets anywhere. Unfortunatel,y the US trade war with China and the currency issues in India and Turkey in 2018 have made forex traders jittery about emerging market currencies, including the Indonesian Rupiah, while a bit more research on the country’s historic fundamentals should give no cause for alarm.

USD 23 billion in impact investing opportunities

The impact investing opportunity is enormous.
A conservative estimate by my team at Mekar and myself sets the impact investment potential at USD 23+ billion over the next five years. The Mekar report concluded that the largest opportunities lay in renewable energy, agriculture and fisheries, water, private education and financial services. The report covers 17 sectors of industry with high impact and commercial potential, it looks at the risks, trends and opportunities within these sectors.

The Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) reports that over the last decade some USD 3.7 billion in impact investments flowed into Indonesia. A small portion of this USD 148 million is from private impact investors, the rest from development finance institutions (DFIs). Agribusiness and Financial services received the majority of the capital, where DFI’s tended to use debt and private investors equity finance.

90 million people expected to join the middle classes by 2030

The disposable income of Indonesian’s is expected to rise. In 2010, approximately 45 million Indonesians earned more than USD 3,600 per year. McKinsey, the consultancy that did the research says this level of income, the average GDP/capita, brings an Indonesian into the ‘consumer class’. By 2030, 48% of the Indonesian population is estimated to be part of the ‘consumer classes’, totalling 136 million of a population of 280 million Indonesians by then.

If McKinsey’s forecast is correct, today approximately 75 million Indonesians or 28% earn more than the national average income. This will greatly boost the spending power of Indonesians with all the associated benefits of domestic-driven growth … and all the inevitable issues of housing, water, food and energy demand.

Growing government support for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);

Indonesia has more than its measure of development challenges: poverty, water, deforestation, infrastructure, sanitation, waste processing, etc to name a few. On a limited budget, the government can only do so much. With the growth in the Indonesian middle classes, the private sector has ample scope to invest in Indonesia’s development, at a profit. You will however need to carefully analyse the risk of “government induced unpredictability” lurking in the sectors that you are interested in.

Recognising the importance of the SDGs, President Joko Widodo mandated the Ministry of National Development Planning (Bappenas) in 2017 to develop a roadmap for Indonesia’s support to the SDGs. This roadmap, presented in the World Bank Summit in Bali, also outlined the measures to be taken to achieve them. The targets have been set on renewable energy, deforestation, palm oil expansion, women’s empowerment, poverty reduction, nutrition, maternal health, water, sanitation, etc.

This intention is a good first step, however weak the implementation and enforcement may be. Nevertheless, the government support for these goals is there. To make funds available for action the government has put in place BUMDes (village financing companies); a blended finance policy and has successfully raised USD 2 billion via a “Green Sukuk” (a shariah government green bond). Much of these funds have been allocated for returns-generating SDG-relevant investments. More such Green bonds are likely to follow, like the Green Corporate bond issued by OCBC-NISP with the IFC.

On another front, closing the gender gap, although by no means complete, has resulted in marginally more women being financially included (banking services) than men in Indonesia. Jokowi’s first Cabinet has a record 9 women ministers. Women do occupy positions of power, Megawati Soekarnoputri, Soekarno’s daughter, being the iconic example.

Growing and efficient digital economy ecosystem

Indonesia’s digital economy is expected to almost double in value from $40 billion this year to USD 130 billion by 2025 says the “e-Conomy Southeast Asia” study by Google, Bain and Temasek. The sector including e-Commerce, ride-hailing, payments, lending, and insurance has grown annually by 88% since 2015.

If you are intending to invest in a digital economy company the message is optimistic and clear.

Even outside these digital sectors directly, the ramifications are enormous. These changes lower transaction costs (payments, digital signatures, logistics, price competition); they speed up deliveries (online ordering, and again logistics and payments); they raise growth in retail industry (eCommerce); and have enabled internet and smartphone penetration, which are now at 170 and 70 million users respectively. This has forced the government to increase internet coverage and bandwidth infrastructure. In short, the digital infrastructure to leverage your (impact) investments is being rolled out as we speak.

More impact per dollar invested

For impact investors seeking large social or environmental impacts, Indonesia can deliver at scale. The largest social impact can be achieved by providing affordable services that cater to the basic needs of those at the bottom of the income pyramid. Seventy two percent of the 267 million Indonesians earn less than the national average income of USD 3,600 per capita ($10 per day). Some 35% of the population gets by with less than $4 per day, and about 20% earn below $2 per day. Your target consumers or employees should be in one of the segments, if you seek large social impact.

To give you some specific price-points at which your services become affordable for low income households, it should be sold at below the following indicative USD retail prices: housing (excl. land) $10,000; Renewable energy: 7c per Kwh; drinking water at 10c per litre; education $5000 / year; farmland leased at $20k – $45k per Ha per year.

For environmental commodities, the pricing is too varied to be of any use, but a tonne of CO2e can be sequestered at around $10 per tCO2e.

A growing and maturing incubator, accelerator and social enterprise ecosystem

Since 2011 when Mekar started its incubator activities, followed and surpassed by KejoraHQ, many incubators and accelerators have sprouted in and around Jakarta. Today Indonesia has over 20 such startup ‘breeders’ around the country. Although a smaller portion call themselves a social enterprise incubator, almost all incubators produce social enterprises, even in the tech space, mainly because of the level of development that the country is in.

Recently, Angin.id published the second edition of its social-enterprise ecosystem report. It counts 66 organisations and entrepreneurs in this social entrepreneurship ecosystem space. There are of course more since I know of at least 4 others (Kembali, Hubud, Outpost and Green School’s iHub) in Bali which are not listed in the report.

More exits are possible today

Usually, the ability to exit an investment is crucial for driving the interest in equity investments into young companies. Said another way, if there are few exits there will be little investment. Indonesia seems to have broken this rule over the last 6 years.

Over the years 2012-2017, Jakarta was the #1 ‘frontier’ city worldwide by number of VC deals. Examples of ‘Frontier Cities’ are Istanbul, KL, Bangkok, Hanoi, Phnom Phen, Vienna, Bogota, etc. The USD 3 billion in investments into Indonesian startups of course mainly went into the now familiar GoJek, Tokopedia, Traveloka, Bukalapak and others. This wave of finance also created some exits for the founders and early angel investors. Outside this tech-ecommerce-fintech scene however, investments and exits were as sluggish or invisible as usual.

In Indonesia, the traditional IPO route has been limited to the Jakarta Stock exchange. The IDX listed 42 companies in 2019 and 55 in 2018. Larger are the opportunities for trade sale exits to the growing number of venture capital funds in Indonesia, as well as to those outside Indonesia. Outside the high-tech, high-growth sectors, any trade sales will tend to be done to incumbent strategic investors already in the industry. Crunchbase offers the best overview of VC funds in Indonesia. Although many of the local VCs often state that their investment sector is Tech, Mining or Infrastructure it does not mean that they don’t do impact investments; they absolutely do. Take Mandiri Capital, a typical VC focussing on FinTechs, almost half of their investments support the financing of the unbanked and underbanked population.

In the area of impact investing, several funds that are active in Indonesia but not managed in Indonesia are Patamar Capital, the Aavishkaar Frontier Funds, Garden Ventures, C4D Partners as well as the larger DFI funds.

A new financing avenue that was opened up by the OJK (Financial Services Authority) in 2019 is equity crowdfunding. Under the new regulations, companies can raise up to USD 700,000. So far Santara.co.id is the only licensed platform. Santara has only raised USD 300,000 for 15 businesses in 2019, but it’s a start. Soon, another 9 registered platforms will offer their equity funding services as well.

An important point about exits in Indonesia is that it requires patience. Don’t assume you can exit in 3 to 5 years, it is probably better to assume 7 to 10 years.

Growing ease of doing business & better regulations today for foreign investors

It has become easier to do business in Indonesia. Overall Indonesia has climbed the ranks of the ‘Doing Business Database’. Indonesia is now ranked at 73 out of 190 countries. It scores well in getting credit, getting electricity, protecting minority investors and resolving insolvency. Unfortunately it is still arduous to set up a business, enforcing contracts, getting permits, paying taxes, trading across borders and registering property. These national statistics are skewed towards the largest cities Jakarta and Surabaya. Anywhere else is likely to be more difficult though.

Foreign investors will find the BKPM (Indonesian Investment Coordinating Board) a lot more welcoming today. You will, though, if you make an investment into an existing or new company, have to register the company as a “PT PMA” or a foreign owned limited liability company. This process will cost you an extra USD 2,000+ in legal fees and take about 3-4 more months in paperwork. This kind of company will be expected to capitalize a minimum of USD 160,000. Many investors that work through Singapore will tend to set up a “mirror” company in Singapore that reflects the true shareholding (including the Indonesian founders), that then fully owns the Indonesian operating company. This is the way that many VCs and family offices in Indonesia structure their deals from Singapore.

Co-investing with like-minded local investors is easier today

The growth in the Indonesian startup ecosystem as well as the increase in wealthy millennial and entrepreneurial Indonesians that have been educated abroad, now makes it easier to find like-minded co-investors in young high growth businesses.

Additionally, more foreign investors are more open to investing in Indonesia, if there is a local lead investor that can lead them through the myriad of regulations and cultural particularities. Finding a foreign investor to invest as lead investor will make deal closure very problematic. A fully foreign board of directors can make it more difficult to get the necessary licenses.

Massive opportunities in improving efficiency and idle capacity

Finally, there are massive gains to be made in efficiency. Companies that can improve efficiency can quickly outperform the competition here. Here are some examples. Agricultural yields can be improved by applying new agricultural inputs and fertilizers. Outside the plantations much farming is done by smallholders, simply helping them reduce post-harvest losses can reduce the 50% harvest that doesn’t make it to market.

Logistics is another area where smarter use of transportation and routing can be applied.  In the area of energy use, huge savings can be made with better cooling systems; smarter energy monitoring and timing; smart mini-grids; etc.

In the area of water supply, Jakarta’s municipal water supply can provide 65% of the city’s water, were it not that one third of it is lost to leakages. And almost in every sector ordering, invoicing and order fulfillment is a paper-based ordeal. For example some 30% of medical insurance claims (on paper) are lost during transportation from hospital to the third party providers that type out the forms for the insurance companies.

In the area of lending, almost all banks and credit cooperatives still take in loan applications on paper, while there are plenty of loan-origination-systems that can process it all digitally from loan application to disbursement. The examples don’t stop here, make use of the opportunity.

10 CHALLENGES FACING FOREIGN INVESTORS

Currency risk: High hedging costs of 6-8% per year for hard currencies

Over the last 5 years, an investment of USD 100 in Indonesia with 0% return would have lost you 5.6% per year on currency risk alone. One of those years would have lost you 14%, the others less. Had you hedged your currency risk, then the losses would have been more predictable, but it would have been more expensive at 6-7% per year. In 2018 when the rupiah dropped significantly the hedging costs reached as high as 11%. It is difficult to hedge for longer than a year, and each year you will need to reprice your hedging contract. The cheapest source of hedging services are through the large international banks like HSBC or Standard Chartered. But you can also get multi-currency hedging quotes from TCX for large amounts or MFX for smaller contracts.

My advice would be to not hedge and exit when the forex rate gives you a good rate.

Taxes: Punitive taxes for ‘pass-through’ funds or and other issues

As a foreign investor, not registered with the Indonesian tax office, you will pay around 15% on earnings (interest or dividends). Once you repatriate the returns you will pay a 10% repatriation tax. However, if you are a ‘pass-through’ fund, which most funds are since they are paying back to LPs or other funds, you will have to pay 20% on the repatriated funds. Besides this corporate income tax currently sits at 25% higher than most countries in the region.

These are the predictable tax issues. Sometimes taxation can come with surprises as in the following two real, but hopefully infrequent cases. One investor was presented with a huge capital gains tax claim even when they had actually exited at a loss. They were faced with the normal capital gains tax over their investment assuming their investment appreciated by 8% annually, even though they made an actual loss. This is obviously killing.

Another investee known to me, has had its tax obligations recalculated three times by the tax office, having to pay more each time. Tax officers are paid a bonus for hitting their tax collection targets, if your company is the most likely candidate to fill those claims in your tax district, you’d better be in their good books. Building good relationships from the outset is key in Indonesia.

Doing an equity investment isn’t easy

In many ways Islamic finance or shariah finance is very similar to equity finance. It is a profit sharing, or dividends model. Musharakah finance (capital by the investor) or Mudarabah finance (the investor puts in capital and management time) are both such types of profit sharing agreements.

This is where the similarities stop. Equity investing in Indonesia is far less popular than lending. The crux of the problem is that investors don’t trust investees to use their money wisely, and the investees don’t entrust part ownership to an investor that they may not know.

In addition to these trust issues, it is procedurally more complicated to register new shareholders, requiring a new articles of association every time. The new shareholdings also require a new registration of shareholding with the Ministry of Justice and human rights, a paper based affair. In the worst case the majority shareholder could issue new shares without informing the foreign minority shareholder. Going to court over such an infringement can take long without getting a predictable outcome: tread carefully.

Basically Indonesia is similar to most frontier investment markets. Transaction costs and post investment costs are higher; the ticket sizes are smaller; there are limited secondary markets; and quality analytical data is scarce.

As a result a lot of investors prefer to use convertible loans here, rather than straight equity.

Government induced unpredictability

A knowledgeable government consultant once told me that there are 6,300 active government regulations of which half contradict each other. Add to that 34 ministries with each many departments, with 36 Provinces many of them 1000s of kilometers from the legislative centre of Jakarta, this can all make for a daunting interpretation of the rules. In my line of business we report and comply with the rules of the OJK. The regulations are only 2 years old, so they do change. But, we must also comply with regulations of the Ministry of Information and Communication. Our loan originators, often credit cooperatives, report to the Ministry of Cooperatives. Each entity has its own rules which don’t necessarily align with each other. This all distracts from the running of the business.

The biggest issue though are the sudden regulatory changes. Some examples. Private companies with a license to provide clean municipal water suddenly had their licenses revoked. Water bottling companies suddenly saw new regulations allowing villages to produce their own drinking water. Waste to Energy companies had to suddenly stop by court order, because some companies were pumping toxins into the air. Chiropractors were outlawed when one practitioner was confronted with the death of a politically exposed patient. Tumbler and Reddit are blocked because a minister’s sensitive photos appeared on these sites. Feed-in tariffs for Solar PV suddenly dropped by 25%. Commodity prices can suddenly get subsidized or capped. This list goes on.

Again, here, it is important to stay abreast of the trends by joining the industry association and being friendly with the regulators so that your business can anticipate the changes. Or simply build up reserves to cushion for unpredictability.

Fragmentation of markets is the norm & lack of market data

As you pay for your goods at a large hardware store you will see at least 5 EDC machines to process debit and credit cards. ATMs are the same, there’ll be at least 4 of them, one for each major bank. Along any road, watch out for the lamp posts, you’ll see a cluster of about 5 poles, one for each cable, be it electricity, telco, internet provider, etc. These visual markers are indicative of the fragmentation in most markets.

In the FinTech Association, with some 400 members, 200 are payment gateway and e-wallets companies. The credit rating bureaus are less than 5 years old. Divide and rule is the norm. Transparency and comparison sites are scarce. Since it is almost not done for anyone to stick out their neck and compare the performance of goods and services. As a result, data on these markets is unfortunately compiled by random news articles or hearsay.

Logistics

Indonesia is diverse because it is an archipelago spanning 5700 by 2500 kilometers. It takes 8 hours to fly from Aceh (West) to Halmahera (East). In between lie 17,000 islands, 6000 of them inhabited.

No wonder that Jokowi put a lot of effort into building infrastructure in his first term as president. Among many projects, completing a highway from West to East Java was a major achievement. His administration is also building harbours and airports by the hundreds, all to connect this huge nation.

Startups in the field of logistics have been mushrooming. At shorter distances the ride hailing companies Gojek and Grab are capitalizing with their Go-Box, Go-Send and Go-Food services. All of this is badly needed since logistics costs time and money here. It can sometimes be easier to order products on AliExpress from China than to source them in Indonesia. No wonder that a lot of the agricultural harvest and fisheries catch doesn’t make it to market. So my advice, analyse the costs and time well before you invest.

In-company and workforce innovation can be a challenge

At school many Indonesians learn not to ask questions, make mistakes and especially not to contradict the teacher in the classroom. Once the inquisitive child’s mindset is stamped out, it is hard to revive.

I have long wondered why my Indonesian colleagues seldom ask the ‘why, what and how’ questions. This nudged me into writing an essay about the 5 obstacles hampering innovation in Indonesian companies. I concluded that these obstacles to innovation all had to do with mindset rather than technical innovation. I checked with directors in other companies, they concluded the same. Many Indonesian employees have a fear of asking questions; of making mistakes; of contradicting their superiors. This is compounded by superiors who don’t dare to say ‘I don’t know’. And the fifth issue is that information is often gathered by hearsay, rather than finding source articles, data or legislation. In this kind of environment you either need to hire malleable graduate employees or you’ll need to embark on a mission of changing organisational culture.

Talent scarcity

70% of Indonesia’s workforce has only completed primary school and 5% has a bachelor’s degree or higher, says Antonius Alexander Brian Handoko, Director HR, Samator Group. None of this would be a problem if the economy wasn’t growing at 5%, but it is. The scarcity of talent is especially irksome in the Tech industries of e-commerce, banking and telecommunications. These three sectors absorb so many tech graduates and professionals that small companies struggle to recruit and retain good software developers. Gojek has had to acquire a software development company in Bangalore, India, to solve this problem. Other companies often recruit from expensive Singapore or Malaysia instead.

On a more nuanced level, there may seem to be sufficient professionals with a formal training, but they often underperform in a problem solving, initiative or improvisation capacities. This is especially true in project management, financial control, risk management, quality control, engineering and in the financial literacy of business founders.

This talent scarcity isn’t uniform, in many professions like manufacturing, agriculture, cottage industries employees can be plentiful, loyal and diligent.

Sectoral issues for impact investing in Indonesia

There are several investment issues at the sectoral level. The examples below are by no means comprehensive, they merely illustrate the nature of the issues. The renewable energy sector probably presents the largest impact investment opportunity of any sector in Indonesia. However, PLN, the monopolist state-owned electricity company, is slow at issuing PPAs. It also sets feed-in tariffs at disadvantageous rates and basically seeks to develop power generating capacity itself, as it has done in the field of geothermal power generation by setting up its own development company. Surprisingly there seems to be little to no public debate about splitting up PLN into transmission, trading, sales and generation; ideally with the latter two being fully privatised – as this market should ideally be organised.

In the agricultural sector, it is best to stay clear of commodities like rice, soya, beef, and chili which often are confronted with government imposed price caps or subsidies, especially in the period before and during Ramadan. Non-government induced issues are mainly related to low yields; fragmented smallholder structures; and high post-harvest losses. Any investments that resolve these issues will have a huge impact.

Since 2017, the privatised water sector has faced significant contradictions in regulations, court rulings and government policy. The Indonesian constitutional court is against water privatisation; yet the supreme court ruled to forge ahead with privatisation; while the Governor of Jakarta wishes to annul the contracts with 2 underperforming private municipal water companies Aetra and Palyja; conversely, the central government has pushed for several private and PPP water supply projects commonly known as SPAM, which also allows village enterprises to produce drinking water. While the government’s goal of providing universal access to clean drinking water is commendable, the meandering approach is not conducive to increase commercial investment in water infrastructure. Therefore, check before investing.

Regarding the size of foreign shareholdings in specific sectors, investors are advised to check the latest “Negative Investment Lists” published by BKPM (Investment Coordinating Board). These lists regularly change and specify in detail the degree of foreign ownership permitted and whether these must be done in partnership with local companies and more.

Additionally here are some important tips on conducting business or investments in Indonesia:

Indonesia is a wonderful, tolerant, safe and diverse country. Many foreign investors avoid it, to their own detriment. They erroneously see it as a huge, a Muslim and a homogenous nation. This form of negative investment bias is great for investors that are willing to explore and be patient.

Selamat berinvestasi dan mencapai kemakmuran!

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Further reading:

Bain & Co, Temasek, Google – e-Conomy SEA report, 2019
Bappenas – Indonesian Roadmap for the SDGs, 2018
Crunchbase – Indonesia Venture Capital Investors, 2018
McKinsey & Co. – “The Archipelago Economy”, 2014
PWC – “The World in 2050”, 2018
Tatler Magazine Indonesia – VCs for startups in Indonesia, 2018
Thierry Sanders – “Impact Investment in Indonesia – a five year outlook”, 2018
Thierry Sanders – “5 obstacles to innovation in Indonesian companies”, 2017
World Bank – Ease of Doing Business, 2018
World Bank FinDex – Financial inclusion of Indonesian women, 2018