JAKARTA: Indonesia doesn’t expect Tesla Inc to invest in the country anytime soon, after coordinating minister Luhut Panjaitan met with Elon Musk last month.

       “I said fine, we are doing okay, if you cannot invest in Indonesia for a moment, no problem,” Panjaitan, who is the coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment, said about his meeting with Musk in August when they talked about Tesla for more than two hours.

       Speaking at the Bloomberg CEO Forum in Jakarta yesterday, Panjaitan said Musk was concerned about the global economic outlook and oversupply in the electric vehicle industry.

       Tesla last week rolled out another round of price cuts and unveiled its refreshed Model 3 in an all-out push to boost sales.

       In the United States, Tesla has dropped the starting price of the Model X to US$79,990 – a US$41,000 reduction from the start of the year.

       Bloomberg reported earlier this year that Tesla was closing in on a preliminary deal to set up a factory in Indonesia.

       Indonesian President Joko Widodo has set out a vision of building out an end-to-end electric vehicle (EV) supply chain onshore by offering potential investors access to the nation’s reserves of key battery metals as well as its more than 270 million consumers.

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       That plan is starting to take shape as global EV and battery producers plan billions of dollars of investment, from Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd’s US$6bil mining-to-batteries complex to Hyundai Motor Co’s new EV plant.

       Musk is set to visit Indonesia in October for talks between the government and his satellite Internet service Starlink, Panjaitan said.

       That could help connect Indonesia’s rural areas, especially in the east, for better access to education and health services, he said. — Bloomberg