JAKARTA, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian President Joko Widodo inaugurated on Monday two big copper smelters that were expected to increase the value of Indonesian mining products in the global market.
One of them is a copper refinery facility belonging to PT Amman Mineral International that is located in West Sumbawa, West Nusa Tenggara province. The smelter spent 21 trillion rupiah (1.4 billion U.S. dollars) in investment and has a production capacity of processing 900,000 tons of copper concentrate per year.
Another one is a smelter owned by PT Freeport in Gresik, East Java province that will produce copper cathode. With an investment of 56 trillion rupiah (3.7 billion dollars), the smelter is set to process 1.7 million tons of copper concentrate brought from Papua.
In his opening remarks, President Widodo said that Indonesia wanted to process its own mineral resources and not export raw materials so that the minerals could have added value. ■