RI needs $28.5b for electricity sector

RI needs $28.5b for electricity sector

Indonesia will need to raise US$28.5 billion for investments in its electricity sector over the next decade to meet the country's growing demand for electrical power, a news report said Wednesday.

Eddie Widiono, president of the state-run electricity company PT PLN, said the country needed the investments to boost electricity production by another 24,500 megawatts over the next 10 years and to build an additional 11,600 kilometers of transmission lines, Antara news agency said.

Widiono said it was impossible for the state to make such huge investments alone.

While attending a workshop with the Indonesian Association of Electrical and Mechanical Contractors (AKLI) in Bali Tuesday, the PLN president appealed to private investors, provincial governments and district administrations to take part in raising the funds needed in the sector.

Since 1998, when the Indonesian economy plunged into its worst economic crisis in decades, the installed capacity of electricity generation has grown less than 1 percent per year, while public demand for electricity had increased an average of 11 percent per year, Widiono noted. -- DPA