Foreign Workers and Investors in Indonesia: Border Control Practices and Challenges During the Covid-19 Outbreak

Abstract

Flocks of foreign nationals as top-level managers, high-skilled workers, and investors are encouraged to work at multinational companies and invest a great amount of money in some national strategic projects during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Indonesian government has responded to these situations, particularly migration concepts, border control management at entry points, and work or residence permits. E-government initiative has been adopted to address these issues, but it lacks digital system development, interoperability applications, and internet infrastructures. This study identifies practices and challenges of how business law in Indonesia offers the ease of doing business and investment for foreign nationals towards trust and economic stability during the Covid-19 outbreak. It employs a public policy analysis approach by exploring the policy documents on border control management in Indonesia in the framework of business and investment. The result shows a business law construction where government agencies published fragmented regulations about foreign workers or investors entering and staying in Indonesia, including poor public online service. It suggests that any regulations could be issued by a coordinating minister, considering the integration of visas, residence permit, and work permit in a single format, and interoperability of all web or app-based services.