​Financial Services Authority, Jakarta, April 19, 2016: The Financial Services Authority (OJK) and Indonesia's Ministry of Tourism signed a memorandum of understanding in order to support a government program that aims to develop and grow 10 new, local tourism destinations, including Lake Toba, Belitung, Tanjung Lesung (a peninsula in Banten province), the Thousand Islands, Borobudur Temple, Bromo Mountain, Lombok's Mandalika, Komodo Island, the Wakatobi National Park, and Morotai.   

In his welcoming speech, Chairman of OJK's Board of Commissioners Muliaman D. Hadad said that the OJK understood that the backward-and-forward-linkage character played a major role in the tourism industry. A growing tourism industry would foster multi-industry development, such as hospitality, transportation, culinary, handicraft, and other industries.

"The OJK is also aware that the tourism industry is the fourth biggest contributor to Indonesia's foreign exchange reserves after mining and plantation sectors. Development of the 10 new tourism destinations has enormous potential to raise state income up to IDR 240 trillion by 2019. Such effort is also expected to create 13 million job opportunities and increase the number of foreign tourists to 20 million people," he said.

However, efforts to develop the tourism industry inevitably need considerable capital. It would be difficult to develop tourist attractions, even the wonderful ones, if they were not equipped with sufficient infrastructure. This also applied to the supporting industries.

"Therefore, financial services companies should embrace such enormous potential by channeling more loans or financing, and making direct investments into the government program that aims to develop those 10 new tourism destinations," Muliaman said.

The memorandum of understanding is expected to bring together the government and financial services companies in an effort to deal with the concerns related to tourism development, so both parties would synergize and grow Indonesia's tourism industry.