AmCham Update Vol. 7 #097

Purbaya Fired as Finance Minister, IDX Readies Short-Selling Rules, Indonesia's Consumer Confidence on the Rise, US to Impose Steep Duties on Indonesian Solar Imports, Expat Work Permits to be Processed in Five Days

Sep 15, 2026

Purbaya Suddenly Sacked, Suahasil takes Finance Post

After just one turbulent year, President Prabowo Subianto suddenly fired mercurial Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa and replaced him with a steady hand from inside the Ministry, Suahasil Nazara, who has served as Deputy Finance Minister since 2019.

The reshuffle took place on Sep 14 and comes just after the 2027 State Budget Bill was submitted to the DPR. It is the second change of finance minister since Subianto took office. He replaced veteran former Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati with the pro-growth Purbaya in 2025.

Suahasil will now have to balance the president’s demands for expensive populist initiatives like his Free Nutritious Meals program and the Red & White village cooperatives scheme with tight fiscal realities and pressure from skeptical investors.

Purbaya’s brief tenure was marked by a number of economic shocks, including a sharp fall in the rupiah, a declining stock market and a ballooning fiscal deficit.

Upon taking office, Purbaya injected $12 billion from the government’s financial reserves into state-owned banks to spur growth and lending, a move that put him on a collision course with lawmakers and Bank Indonesia.

When his policies were met with opposition from the media and economists, he could react with anger. He once called the Economist magazine “stupid” and criticized Citigroup for warning about a growing current account deficit

Purbaya’s latest rift involved his announcement last week that state asset fund Danantara would remit Rp 120 trillion (US$6.8 billion) in dividends from state-owned enterprises to the state budget this year. He said he was acting on Subianto’s instructions despite objections from the fund itself.

Born in Jakarta on Nov. 23, 1970, Suahasil has a PhD from the University of Illinois. He entered government work in 2009 and served as head of the Ministry’s Fiscal Policy Agency from 2016 to 2019, when he became deputy minister.

After his inauguration, Suahasil promised to maintain a “healthy and credible” state budget and communicate fiscal policy to the public. He said he will support the government’s priority programs.

“The state budget must be able to carry out the government's priority programs. Therefore, the budget must be healthy, must be credible,” he said. He added that the fiscal deficit would be kept below the legal cap of 3 percent.

The chair of the Indonesia Employers Association, Shinta Kamdani, said Suahasil should provide policy continuity.

"We hope this continuity will help %u2060ensure that the leadership transition does not lead to a sudden shift in policy direction," she said.

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Short Selling Poised for IDX Return

The Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) has announced it will gradually roll out its long-delayed short-selling rule starting this week following a directive from the Financial Services Authority (OJK).

IDX director of trading and member regulation Irvan Susandy and IDX director of business development Iding Pardi announced the development on Sep 14.

They said in a statement that the OJK has told the exchange to implement short selling in stages, “with due regard to infrastructure readiness, adequate risk mitigation and supervisory effectiveness.” The move is to formally take effect Sep 15.

The IDX plans to issue the list of short-selling securities on Sep 2. Short selling was originally set for last year, but faced multiple delays. The target is to use short transactions to increase the market’s liquidity by 2 to 3 percent.

The IDX and OJK postponed the rule to ease pressures on the benchmark Jakarta Composite index (JCI), with the IDX saying last year that stress in the global market had led to domestic market uncertainty.

Indonesia’s stock market was given a black eye in January when global index provider MSCI issued a transparency warning just before markets were shaken by the start of the US war on Iran in February. MSCI had threatened to revoke Indonesia’s emerging market status over concerns that insider trading and other irregularities harmed investors.

The timing is hardly ideal, given the sudden resignation of Bank Indonesia (BI) Governor Perry Warjiyo in July, and the sacking by President Prabowo Subianto of Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa on Sep 14.

The JCI is the worst-performing index in Asia, having declined by 25 percent since the start of the year. Nevertheless, the index has shown some signs of life, gaining 4.64 percent in August alone.

On Sep 15, the JCI closed down 1.12 percent to 6,461.15. The rupiah dollar rate was also down, trading late at 17.703,95 to the dollar.

Short selling is a trading strategy where investors gain from a price decline in a particular stock, often as a hedge against the downside risk of a long position in the same security.

An investor who short-sells a stock borrows shares from a brokerage and sells those in the market. If the stock price drops, the investor buys the stock at a lower price and makes a profit. However, if the stock goes up, the investor must buy it back at a higher price, incurring a loss in the process.

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Indonesia's Consumer Confidence Rises in August, but Spending Flat

Indonesia’s consumer confidence improved in August, with Bank Indonesia’s Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) rising slightly to 118.5 from 116.8 in July, reversing several months of decline.

The monthly CCI measures household perceptions of current economic conditions and expectations for the next six months. It is calculated as the average of the Current Economic Condition Index (IKE) and Consumer Expectation Index (IEK). Readings above 100 indicate optimism.

The Current Economic Condition Index rose to 109.4 from 107.9 in July, while the Consumer Expectation Index increased to 127.6 from 125.7. Stronger confidence was concentrated among respondents aged 20–30 and those spending more than Rp 5 million per month, although sentiment remained weaker among some older and lower-spending groups, according to BI Communications Head Denny Prakoso during a press conference on Sep 9.

Then-Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa said the August improvement provided an early indication that fiscal support deployed in late July and early August was beginning to strengthen sentiment. Purbaya was fired on Sep 14.

“Looking at the trend this August, this is quite a good figure. If we look previously, it had been declining until July 2026,” Purbaya said on Sept. 9.

The government has also sought to channel more liquidity through the banking system to support consumption and lending. Purbaya said Public Services Agencies (BLU) had been instructed to cap interest rates on bank deposits at 80 percent of the BI Rate to discourage excess government cash from remaining idle.

However, stronger confidence has yet to translate into a sharp rise in retail spending. BI’s August Retail Sales Survey projected sales growth of just 0.5 percent year-on-year, easing from 1.1 percent in July.

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US to Impose Steep Duties on Solar Imports from India, Indonesia and Laos

The US Department of Commerce finalized tough duties on the import of solar cells and panels from India, Indonesia and Laos to the United States. The department said on Sep 11 that producers in those countries dumped cheap products in the US and benefited from unfair government subsidies.

The department assigned anti-dumping margins of 123.04 percent for India, 94.36 percent for Indonesia and 65.43 percent for Laos.

The department also set countervailing duty rates of 126.09 percent %u2060for Indian producers, between 73.2 percent and 173.7 percent for Indonesian producers and between 82.03 percent and 153.67 percent for Lao producers.

The action was related to a call for an investigation brought by the Alliance for American Solar Manufacturing and Trade, whose members include First Solar, Hanwha Qcells and Mission Solar Energy.

The determinations are “an essential step toward enforcing our trade laws and restoring fair competition for US solar manufacturers and the workers they employ," %u2060Tim Brightbill, lead attorney for the Alliance, said in a statement. "We will keep monitoring import data and holding bad actors accountable wherever they move next."

The US International Trade Commission plans to make a final determination %u2060Oct 14 on whether the imports materially injured or threatened to injure domestic manufacturers. The Commerce Department is %u2060expected to issue final duty orders in November.

This is the latest turn in a trade dispute over solar imports that has dragged on for years. The US first imposed anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on Chinese solar products in 2012, prompting manufacturers there to shift production to other Asian countries.

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Gov’t to Cut Foreigner Work Permit Processing to Five Days

The government plans to cut processing times for foreigner work permits to a maximum of five days by integrating the licensing systems of the Manpower, Immigration, and Investment ministries.

Two joint decrees were signed on Sep 9 by Manpower Minister Yassierli, Immigration and Corrections Minister Agus Andrianto, and Investment and Downstream Industry Minister Rosan Roeslani. The agreements cover the integration of the Investment Ministry’s Online Single Submission (OSS) system with the Manpower Ministry’s SIAPkerja platform and Immigration’s All Indonesia application, as well as the formation of a technical integration team.

Rosan said the integration would provide investors with greater certainty over foreign worker licensing, with permits targeted for completion within four to five days, in line with Government Regulation No. 28/2025 on Risk-Based Business Licensing.

“The permit will take approximately four to five days. Once the process is completed, the permit will be automatically issued,” Rosan said.

Under the integrated system, the OSS will serve as the single-entry point for services including approval of Foreign Worker Utilization Plans (RPTKA) and immigration permits required for foreign workers. The system is scheduled to begin operating at the end of this month.

Indonesian manpower laws allow for companies to hire foreign workers for certain positions, provided that their positions are unable to be filled by Indonesian workers due to a skills gap.

Investors have long complained that obtaining permits for expat employees is often slow, cumbersome and confusing.

Rosan said the streamlined process is expected to support investment while facilitating knowledge and technology transfer in sectors that require foreign expertise.

Yassierli said the integration would also improve government monitoring of investment projections and approved RPTKAs. He stressed that the system would not alter the respective authorities of the Manpower and Immigration ministries, which will retain their existing verification responsibilities.

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Update is AmCham’s regular newsletter on developments related to investment, the economy, regulations and issues related to doing business in Indonesia. It comes out three times a week. It is edited by AmCham Managing Director Donna Priadi and written by the AmCham Staff.

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