Indonesian Empowers its Defense Industry

Pirhot Nababan

On 2 October 2012, House of Representatives passed a bill on the defense industry. The bill itself was signed by the President on 5 October 2012 - known also as the  Indonesian National Armed Forces Day - and is registered as Law No. 16 of 2012 (“Law”). The Law was enacted to create a professional and integrated military equipment supply industry in order to lessen Indonesia’s dependency on supply of foreign military equipment.

Previously, the President allocated IDR 57 trillion to be spent until 2014 for the purpose of National Armed Forces’ primary weapons defense system (alat utama sistem senjata - “Alutsista”, mostly weapons, ammunitions, military vehicles, etc.) (Art. 1 (2), Presidential Decree No. 35 of 2011 on Acceleration for Indonesian National Armed Forces’ Primary Weapons Defense System). The funds are taken from the State Budget, which, under the 2013 State Budget Draft is IDR 77.727.6 trillion.