Indonesia’s Industry Minister Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita met with Apple executives on Tuesday to discuss the company’s potential investment in the country, which is necessary for Apple to resume the sale of the iPhone 16 locally. The Indonesian government imposed a sales ban on the iPhone 16 last year after it did not meet the local content requirement, mandating that smartphones sold in the country contain at least 40% locally-made parts.
Apple does not currently have manufacturing facilities in Indonesia, which has a population of 280 million, but the company has been operating application developer academies in the country since 2018, allowing it to sell older iPhone models.
Minister Kartasasmita confirmed he met with Apple’s vice president of global government affairs, Nick Ammann, and other executives to discuss Apple’s new investment proposal. While the minister did not specify a timeline for a deal, he emphasized that the substance of the agreement was a key focus.
Apple had reportedly offered to invest $1 billion in a local manufacturing plant to meet the regulations, but Kartasasmita suggested that amount might not be sufficient. He declined to confirm the details of Apple’s proposal, but stressed that a new investment commitment is needed for 2024-2026 to fulfill Indonesia’s local content mandate.
In the past, Indonesia has pointed out that Apple still has an outstanding $10 million investment commitment from a previous three-year plan that ended in 2023.
Ammann described the meeting as productive but did not provide further details on the discussions.
