Malaysian state-owned investment holding company Khazanah Nasional Berhard has expressed its interest to invest in a number of Indonesiaâs infrastructure projects in exchange for electricity from Indonesia
alaysian state-owned investment holding company Khazanah Nasional Berhard has expressed its interest to invest in a number of Indonesia's infrastructure projects in exchange for electricity from Indonesia.
Coordinating Economic Minister Chairul Tanjung said that the Malaysian firm had discussed the possibility of taking part in several infrastructure projects, including the construction of a power plant, a toll road and an airport.
'We have agreed to carry out a win-win partnership for electricity projects,' he told reporters after a closed-door meeting with Khazanah representatives on Wednesday, without elaborating on the estimated investment value.
Khazanah would invest in power plants in South Sumatra to support the 500 kilovolts (kV)-electricity transmission project on the island, in exchange for an electricity purchasing agreement with Indonesia's state-owned electricity firm, PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN).
'There are many coal resources in South Sumatra that can be used for the power plants. In addition, the generated electricity can be directly transmitted across the island through the planned 500 kV-electricity transmission lines,' he said.
State-Owned Enterprises Minister Dahlan Iskan said in April that the transmission lines would require an investment of Rp 10 trillion (US$838.95 million).
'We hope to construct the transmission lines this year. They will stretch over 1,000 kilometers from Palembang in South Sumatra to Medan in North Sumatra,' he said.
Indonesia is seeking private funds to aid the government's estimated $550 billion investment required for infrastructure projects between 2015 and 2019 to ease bottlenecks and make the country's products more competitive domestically and overseas, which could in turn boost domestic consumption, exports and spur economic growth.
Chairul said on Wednesday that besides planning to build transmission lines in Sumatra, the government had also previously decided to build undersea electricity cables to connect electricity networks among Sumatra, Java and Bali.
'Now, as the latest development, we will also plan to build undersea electricity cables connecting Sumatra and Malaysia to facilitate electricity trade between Sumatra and Malaysia,' he added.
Both Indonesia and Malaysia would benefit from the cable network because they could buy electricity from one another, according to Chairul.
'This scheme is very much possible because Indonesia's peak hour period is at night while Malaysia's peak hour period is in the afternoon,' he said.
Chairul added that Khazanah was also interested in investing in the construction of the Trans Sumatra toll road ' which will connect cities across Sumatra ' and a new airport in Java.
'Khazanah recently acquired concession of an airport in Turkey and it was interested in doing the same for a new international airport that would help support Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta International Airport,' he said, refusing to disclose detailed plans for the new airport construction.
The government previously stated that it would build an airport in Karawang, West Java, to help support the country's main gateway of Soekarno-Hatta, which has been operating at overcapacity.
According to data from the Transportation Ministry, the annual number of passengers passing through Soekarno-Hatta had reached 60.13 million last year, nearly three times the airport's annual capacity of 22 million passengers.
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