I

ndonesia may hand over several of the country'€™s infrastructure projects to the new Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) after President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo'€™s call for a reform in the global financial architecture, a senior minister has said.

Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said that emerging economies, including Indonesia, would need to have their own funding organization as they faced difficulties financing their infrastructure projects as a result of limited funding by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

'€œThe US has been very critical, very harsh, about the AIIB and it is unfair,'€ Bambang said in his Jakarta office on Tuesday. '€œThe US itself has consistently refused to boost its capital in both the World Bank and the ADB. This has made the situation difficult for us,'€ he told reporters.

Even the ADB, despite using '€œAsian'€ in its name, might not fully represent the interests of emerging economies in the region, Bambang said, pointing to the fact that the ADB'€™s establishment came from initiatives by developed countries such as the US, Europe and Japan.

'€œIn Asia, the AIIB and ADB could be complementary, as the ADB focuses more on basic infrastructure projects in issues such as education, health care and poverty,'€ said Bambang. '€œBut, large-scale infrastructure projects such as railways, toll roads and others could be taken care of by the AIIB.'€

The suggestion comes after President Jokowi criticized foreign lenders such as the World Bank, the IMF and the ADB in his speech delivered during the Asian-African Summit in Jakarta last week.

The President called for reforms in the global financial architecture, saying the management of the world'€™s economy should not be left only to those aforementioned institutions.

The US-based IMF and the World Bank have declined to comment on Jokowi'€™s statements. Emails sent by The Jakarta Post to World Bank country director for Indonesia Rodrigo Chaves and IMF senior resident representative for Indonesia Benedict Bingham had elicited no replies by Tuesday evening.

Foreign debt is considered a sensitive issue in Indonesia. On Tuesday, former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono lashed out at Jokowi for alleging Indonesia remained indebted to the IMF, which lent funds to the government in
the aftermath of the 1997-1998 financial crisis.

'€œWe are no longer dictated to by the IMF and donor countries in our economic management, including the formulation of the state budget. The people of Indonesia should no longer feel humiliated or embarrassed, as we are no longer a ward of the IMF,'€ Yudhoyono said in his official Twitter account.

'€œIf I didn'€™t clarify President Jokowi'€™s statement, then people might accuse me of being a liar,'€ he added.

The AIIB, which is seeking to emerge as an alternative to the World Bank and the IMF, is estimated to have a working capital of US$50 billion, with a potential enlargement of up to $100 billion.

The figure may seem insignificant compared to the World Bank'€™s capital base of $223 billion or the IMF'€™s pool of funds of around $755 billion, but the AIIB has attracted policy-makers in many countries '€” including US allies such as Australia, France, Germany, Israel and South Korea '€” due to its more balanced voting process.

Currently the US has a veto over major decisions in the IMF and the World Bank. Meanwhile, China, which has the biggest stake in the AIIB, is considering forgoing veto power in the bank, meaning that no single country could dictate decision-making in the Beijing-led bank, The Wall Street Journal reports.