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