Government planning to let foreigners name and manage uninhabited Indonesian islands to boost economy

According to the Indonesian government, the archipelago is made up of 17,508 islands in total, of which about 6,000 are inhabited. Obviously, that means there are thousands of completely uninhabited islands in Indonesia. And according to Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Luhut Binsar Panjaitan, the government is going to try and turn some of those islands into gold by allowing foreign entities to manage them and even give them the right to name them. 

Luhut said that, out of all of the uninhabited islands in the Indonesian archipelago, about 4,000 have the potential to become tourist destinations. The maritime minister said the government is planning to allow foreigners to invest and manage these islands as a way to bring more tourism, employment and tax revenue to Indonesia, adding that there were already many interested parties. 

“Singapore seems interested, the Japanese are interested too,” Luhut said at a press briefing on Monday as quoted by Republika

However, Luhut made clear that the government would never allow one of Indonesia’s islands to be purchased outright by another country. For example, he said, although the Japanese might be allowed to purchase the rights to name an Indonesian island Yokohama, that island would still belong to Indonesia. 

“So what’s the problem? We’re not selling the island, so although they could give it a name like Yokohama or whatever they like, the island still belongs to Indonesia, not Japan,” Luhut said, noting that there are still about 4,000 islands in Indonesia that have no official name yet.

Given Indonesia’s recent paranoia about foreigners (specifically the Chinese) taking Indonesian jobs and secretly controlling the government, we doubt that this idea will prove popular with the public. But if the government thinks it’ll be a big moneymaker, they’ll like go through with it anyways. After all, a pulau is still a pulau by any other name.



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