Legal basis for summit projects set

Legal basis for summit projects set

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The government has prepared 11 government regulations and three
presidential decrees as the legal basis for 91 infrastructure
projects worth US$22 billion planned for the next five years.

"We have completed eight of the 11 regulations, including for
land acquisition, and we will have the rest finished before the
summit begins," Coordinating Minister for the Economy Aburizal
Bakrie said on Friday after a limited Cabinet meeting to finalize
summit preparations.

The 91 infrastructure projects will be offered at the
Infrastructure Summit on Monday and Tuesday here. The bidding
process is expected to be over within a month.

The government has estimated it would need some $75 billion to
finance the infrastructure-related projects. But it could only
finance approximately 20 percent itself, mostly for "economically
viable" projects. The remaining 80 percent is expected to come
from local and foreign investors.

Meanwhile, Aburizal said the summit would be attended by 678
participants out of 1,257 interested domestic and global
companies.

"Regretfully, we must turn down their requests due to the
limited seats available," he said.

Until late December, only half of the planned 500 seats had
been booked by interested participants. But bookings surged at
the last minute, particularly after the magnitude 9.0 earthquake
and tsunamis that devastated Aceh and parts of North Sumatra on
Dec. 26, killing at least 110,000 people.

"During the summit we will also inform participants that we
have another project worth $10 billion for the reconstruction
program in Aceh after the tsunami, for this year only," Aburizal
said.

As the summit concludes, a joint declaration on infrastructure
development will be made, as well as statements from the World
Bank and some of the companies that have committed to Indonesian
projects.

Aburizal said that the second summit would be held in
November, offering some 52 projects worth $57.5 billion.

Projects offered in the summit:
Gas 6 projects US$2,888 million
Electricity 12 projects US$ 5,897 million
Telecommunications 1 project US$ 1,600 million
Airports 5 projects US$ 709 million
Railways 1 project US$ 77.3 million
Seaports 4 projects US$ 1,485 million
Tap water 24 projects US$ 372 million
Toll roads 38 projects US$ 94.22 million

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