Indonesia and Apple are currently in a bit of a kerfuffle involving market access and investment. Essentially, Indonesian authorities are not allowing Apple to sell its latest product, the iPhone 16, in the country. The government has been fairly explicit about why they are doing this: they want Apple to invest more in local production in exchange for market access.
Apple does not currently have any production facilities in Indonesia despite the fact that, according to the government , 2.3 million iPhones were sold by local retailers in 2023. Indonesia wants more high-tech industrial manufacturing to drive growth so the government decided that, given the size of the domestic market, they were going to play hardball in order to get more production from Apple.
And, to some extent, it worked. Apple originally agreed to invest $100 million, but later raised the offer to $1 billion to build a manufacturing facility in Batam. By early January, however, the iPhone 16 was still being blocked at Indonesian retailers.
It appears that some within the government, having gained initial concessions from Apple, are pushing for more such as investment in research and development. Of course, many might argue this kind of policy whiplash and lack of clarity is the very thing that kept Apple from investing in Indonesia in the first place. One thing that we know for sure is that Indonesia leveraging market access to try and secure better investment terms should surprise absolutely no one .
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