Highlights

• Indonesia establishes Perminas, a new state-owned enterprise under its sovereign wealth fund, to manage strategic minerals including rare earths—reinforcing national control upstream while downstream processing capacity remains limited.
• Indonesia's rare earth resources exist mainly as by-products in nickel, bauxite, and manganese operations, not stand-alone deposits, creating dependence on foreign technology for separation chemistry and magnet manufacturing.
• Without domestic processing infrastructure, Perminas risks repeating a familiar pattern: state ownership of minerals upstream while China retains control of downstream value creation and supply chains.

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Indonesia plans to form a new state-owned company, Perminas, to manage strategic minerals, including rare earths, under its sovereign wealth fund. The move reinforces Jakarta’s preferencefor national control—but, as Rare Earth Exchanges has repeatedlyshown, ownership alone does not create a rare earth supply chain. Processing, not possession, still decides the game.

A New Flag, Same Terrain

According to ANTARA News (opens in a new tab), Indonesia will establish Perminas (Perusahaan Mineral Nasional), a new state-owned enterprise directed by President Prabowo Subianto andhoused under Danantara. Officials say Perminas will focus on strategicminerals, explicitly including rare earth elements, while remaining distinct from MIND ID.

This fits Indonesia’s post-nickel-ban playbook: consolidate upstream control first, sort out downstream later.

What Indonesia Really Has—and What It Doesn’t

Rare Earth Exchanges™ has documented that Indonesia’s rare earth potential is real but secondary. REEs appear mainly as by-products in nickel laterites, bauxite residues, tin tailings, and manganese systems—not as large, stand-alone rare earth deposits. As we’ve previously noted, Indonesia’s manganese story carries a “rare earth signal,” but signals are not supply chains.

The ANTARA framing is accurate on state intent, but incomplete on industrial reality. Rare earth value is unlocked through separation chemistry, solvent extraction, metallization, and magnet manufacturing—areas where Indonesia remains at an early stage and is largely dependent on foreign technology.

China Is the Quiet Variable

In earlier REEx coverage, we highlighted Indonesia’s delicate positioning between resource nationalism and quiet dependence on Chinese processing partners, as well as other Chinese economic entanglements.  Perminas does not change that overnight. Without domestic separation plants or magnet capacity, Indonesia risks reinforcing a familiar pattern: state control upstream, China downstream.

The optimism is political. The constraint is chemical.

The Martabe Tell

ANTARA’s reference to the Martabe gold mine—whose license was revoked after environmental disasters—matters symbolically. Martabe is not a rare-earth asset, but its mention suggests that Perminas could become a policy absorber for assets deemed sensitive or problematic. For investors, this introduces sovereign and execution risk under the banner of strategic management.

Why This Matters for Rare Earth Markets

Perminas is less about near-term rare earth supply and more about precedent. If it catalyzes real downstream investment, Southeast Asia’s role could evolve. If not, Indonesia joins a growing list of countries that control minerals—but not markets.

National control is not the bottleneck. Processing still is.