Indonesia to get benefit from ASEAN infrastructure funds

Indonesia has attempted to boost infrastructure facilities to spur growth to reduce unemployment which climbed during the global financial routs in 2008 and 2009, and reduce poverty.

The facilities are also expected to raise the country's competitiveness after it engaged free trades with some countries recently.

Indonesia has supported the plan for the establishment of the ASEAN infrastructure funds which was initiated at the beginning of May by the ASEAN finance ministers on the side lines of the annual meeting of the ASEAN Development Bank in Uzbekistan, said Indonesian Development Planning Minister Armida S. Alisjahbana.

It has been agreed that all the ASEAN member countries, China, Japan and South Korea to collect 800 million U.S. dollars funds at the beginning, according to the minister.

The financial facility aims at facilitating infrastructure development in the region through the collection of funds, she said.

The working groups of each countries has worked to prepare for the planned meeting in Vietnam next year to discuss more detail on the plan, including the possibility to add the amount of the funds and the way to collect and disburse them, said Armida.

Indonesia, which is attempting to boost its infrastructure facilities and seeking more sources of funding, could make the funds as a new alternative for addressing financial supply gab for its infrastructure development.

The Indonesian government needs over 1,400 trillion rupiah ( some 153.256 billion U.S. dollars) funds to finance massive infrastructure projects by up to 2014, but the country could only provide over 400 trillion rupiah (about 43.767 billion U.S. dollars) and would seek the rest from investors.

Indonesian Public work Minister Djoko Kirmanto said that Indonesia could borrow the ASEAN infrastructure funds through the Indonesian Infrastructure Funds (IIF). "..over 400 trillion rupiah of the infrastructure funds are provided by the government and we want the rest of more than two third of the total funds needed come from private sectors or from other sources," he said.

Indonesia has already engaged free trade with Japan, China and South Korea, and has been in talks to impose the trade system with India and Pakistan.

Indonesia has already started building its huge infrastructure projects to reach at least seven percent economic growth in 2014 and an average of 6.6 percent annually by the year.

With the relatively stable political condition and sound macro economic fundamentals, Indonesia survived from the global financial routs in 2008 and 2009 by registering over 4 percent growth at the first and the second quarter of 2009, the highest in the world after China and India, when the other countries suffered from strong contraction.

Source: Xinhua