Moores Rowland Indonesia, a business advisory and consultancy, provides essential services from auditing and accounting, to tax, legal and human rights. Here, Ms. Mei Nie Tan, a Partner, Accounting and Outsourcing, shares her expertise and gives an Indonesia Business Outlook for 2025, and indeed how Moores Rowland Indonesia can support businesses in the year to come.
Let us know a bit about yourself and your professional experience.
It’s been 24 great years with Moores Rowland Indonesia since I joined in August of 2000. Before joining Moores Rowland, I was with PriceWaterHouseCoopers (PwC) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in the tax services department. Then and now I specialise in individual taxes for Indonesians and expatriates, and corporate tax compliance for companies in a wide range of industries. My expertise also includes payroll management, reviewing and assessing corporate backlog tax issues, making appropriate recommendations and advising on tax savings and taxation impact.
What does 2025 hold for Moores Rowland Indonesia?
Indonesia’s fast growing economy, the dominant economy in Southeast Asia, stable political climate, abundance of natural resources, reasonable labour costs and young, talented workforce translates to great opportunities and a positive business forecast for our firm. President-elect Prabowo is coming in and with him will be a new cabinet and other influential officials, many of whom we have worked with in the past.
We also have the knowledge and relationships to support interested global investors in the future development of the country’s industrial sector. For example, the EV and automotive industry and its supply chain leaders. With its extensive nickel resources, Indonesia is a major supplier of the metal for the EV industry, in which our clients dominate. This sets us up for when Indonesia becomes an even more strategic player in automotive production and holds a controlling regional market share.
In addition, the Indonesia government aims to achieve economic growth between 5.1 percent and 5.5 percent in 2025 by focusing on sustainable inflation, digitaliSation, and climate change initiatives through green economy and energy policies. This will put us ahead or at least at par with our competitors, as we have the professional services to support those initiatives, including auditing of corporate sustainability reports. We also conduct human rights due diligence and sustainability training through our Foundation for International Human Rights Reporting Standards (FIHRRST).
Corporate sustainability and ESG is becoming a major concern due to increasing public awareness, and especially the need to be in compliance with government regulations. Moores Rowland Indonesia will play an even more active role in helping clients navigate these issues by providing insights and recommendations on sustainability strategies to enhance their social and environmental impact, ESG reporting, and compliance with international sustainability standards.
We are taking the initiative in transforming our business operations with the help of AI and IT digitalisation, which is reshaping our businesses approach and bringing efficiencies, agility and customer-centric ideas. All of which makes for an exciting journey in 2025 and the years ahead.
What are some of the trends in the country that are material to Moores Rowland Indonesia?
Because of its location, pro-business government, and geopolitical stance as a bridge between major powers, there is a growing trend in Indonesia toward regional/cross border business activity. Multinational companies are looking for intelligent solutions from firms such as Moores Rowland Indonesia with professional services and connections in other countries to guide them through the complexities of regional integration, expand into new markets and optimise their operations. This sometimes includes helping companies understand the cultural and regulatory differences across the region and to develop strategies to address these challenges. And as I mentioned, our connections in the automotive industry, which is trending up, put us in good stead in providing supporting services for that sector.
One of my favourite quotes by Sun Tzu is, “Opportunities multiply as they are seized.” Indonesia is a land of opportunities!
