An anode material plant with 80,000 tonnes capacity is set to start construction in January, he added.
Both materials are needed to make EV batteries.
“We are building an ecosystem, so we are not only producing nickel- and cobalt-based components alone,” he said.
Indonesia has already started producing EV battery parts extracted from nickel, but other materials are also needed to produce EV batteries, Seto said.
Indonesia currently does not have its own lithium mine. He did not elaborate on how the lithium ore for the plant would be sourced.
The government has banned exports of unprocessed nickel to attract investment at home and secure material for domestic production of nickel metals and battery materials.
(By Fransiska Nangoy and Bernadette Christina Munthe; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor)
