Resource-rich East Kalimantan, Riau and Riau Islands are among Indonesia’s most competitive and investor-friendly provinces, thanks to their rapid progress in infrastructure building and improvements in institutional bureaucracy, a report says. 

However, the three provinces were the only ones outside of the seven provinces of Java and Bali, to secure a place in the top-10 ranking in the Competitiveness Index report jointly prepared by the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Indonesian Employers’ Association (Apindo).

The report measures the competitiveness of all 33 Indonesian provinces based on four variables: macroeconomic stability, institutional planning, business and labor environment, and infrastructure building.