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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