Apple mulls first manufacturing facility in Indonesia after CEO Tim Cook meets Joko Widodo
- Cook has met the Indonesian president in Jakarta and talked about the possibility of setting up manufacturing in the country
- Apple has no manufacturing facilities in Indonesia, although the Southeast Asian nation has a huge, tech-savvy population
“We talked about the president’s desire to see manufacturing in the country, and it is something that we will look at,” Cook told reporters after the meeting.
Apple has no manufacturing facilities in Indonesia, but since 2018 it has been setting up app developer academies, which including the new academy have a total cost of 1.6 trillion rupiah (US$99 million).
Indonesia’s industry minister, Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita, who also attended the meeting, told reporters that if Apple decided to build manufacturing facility in Indonesia, it would have the capacity to produce for export.
“We will discuss how Apple’s facility in Indonesia could become a global supply chain,” he said, adding that the government said that even if Apple did not build a factory, it could partner with Indonesian companies to obtain components.
Apple has met Indonesia’s 35 per cent local content requirement to sell its products by investing in developer academies, Agus said, but the government hoped that number could be pushed higher with a manufacturing facility.
