State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) Minister Rini Soemarno can now exhale as the Bawen-Salatiga toll road in Central Java kicked off operations early this week.

The 17.6-kilometer Bawen-Salatiga toll road, dubbed Indonesia’s loveliest toll road, will link Semarang, the provincial capital, and Surakarta, and is part of the Trans-Java toll road project, a key component to the government’s infrastructure push.

Following the toll road’s inauguration, Rini expressed optimism over the country’s potential to build toll roads spanning 1,800 km, longer than its initial target of 1,200 km. The roads, she said, could stretch from Merak in Banten to Banyuwangi in East Java.

“I like driving, and when President [Joko] Jokowi [Widodo]’s Trans-Java toll road project finishes in 2019, I am going to drive from Merak to Banyuwangi,” Rini said in her speech during an infrastructure forum held by the State-Owned Enterprises Ministry, the Association of State-Owned Banks (Himbara) and The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

In addition to the section connecting Bawen and Salatiga, the President recently inaugurated the 40.5-km Jombang-Mojokerto highway in East Java. Ongoing toll road projects include the Salatiga-Kartasura toll road in Central Java and Bakauheni-Terbanggi Besar toll road in Lampung.

Rini’s optimism comes against the backdrop of surging doubt from investors over the government’s infrastructure program after state-owned construction company PT Waskita Karya faced difficulties in finding investors to finance its projects. Earlier this month, it said it could not secure the required bids for 10 toll roads, pushing down its shares for a few days. Other SOEs in the construction sector, such as PT Wijaya Karya and PT Pembangunan Perumahan, also saw their shares decline.

However, during the meeting, the minister ensured that toll roads, along with the 35,000-megawatt (MW) electricity program, would be prioritized.

Currently, Java is the only island in the sprawling archipelago of more than 17,000 islands with full electrical coverage. The government plans to implement similar systems on other islands, such as Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Sumatra, by 2019.

“Sumatra was the most important place where we needed to build an electrical network. We needed to push the industries to Sumatra as Java has become too congested and expensive [for investors],” Rini said.

State-run electricity firm PLN was in charge of realizing 9,700 MW of power, while private firms were set to provide the rest, she said, highlighting the crucial role of the private sector in the effort.

Last month, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Ignasius Jonan inaugurated the construction of what is said to become Southeast Asia’s largest coal-fired power plant at a capacity of 2x1,000 MW in Jepara, Central Java.

PLN business director for the Maluku and Papua region, Ahmad Rofiq, said that the progress it made in the development of power plant projects in the past few years contributed to the increase in the electrification ratio from 82.75 percent to 93.5 percent.

The achievement may also contribute to the ease of getting electricity in Indonesia, which ranks 49th out of 190 countries according to the World Bank.

Helped by large-scale ongoing projects, the firm expects the rank to improve to 25 next year.

Despite the optimism, the head of the infrastructure working group of the European Business Chamber of Commerce (ECC) in Indonesia, Scott Younger, raised concerns over the investment climate in Indonesia.

European investors are keen to invest in varied infrastructure projects in Indonesia, such as renewable energy, telecommunications, and seaports. However, their appetite is largely hampered by a bad regulatory environment.

“There are more regulations in Indonesia than the whole of ASEAN combined,” Younger said. “Regulations must be more investor-friendly.”

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