Jokowi said after working day and night, the government had achieved the infrastructure development target during his first five years in office. He said by the end of the year, Indonesia would have 1,500 kilometers of toll roads, almost double the number recorded in 2014, the first year of his presidency.

“Don’t applaud […],” the President said when he saw a number of the audience clapping.

Jokowi acknowledged that the nation was far behind other countries in infrastructure development despite the government being able to meet the road construction target. From 1978 until 2014, Indonesia had only built 780 km of toll roads. The number, he said, was considerably low compared to China’s 280,000 km and Malaysia’s 1,200 km.

In his second term, infrastructure development, in addition to human capital development, will remain the government’s top priorities.

“Even though we will prioritize human capital development, infrastructure development still needs to be accelerated,” he said.

Jokowi said the country had gone up 30 places in the infrastructure development index to 52nd place in 2019, from 82nd place in 2010.

The Public Works and Housing Ministry announced recently that it planned to add 5,000 km of roads in the next five years, comprising 1,500 km of toll roads and 2,509 km of roads throughout the country.

During the last five years, the government has built toll roads totaling about 1,000 km, as well as regular roads with a total length of 3,387 km.

The government has invited investors to take part in the development of infrastructure through public-private-partnership (PPP) because the state budget will not be enough to meet the huge financing needs.

“It is impossible that all infrastructure development relies on the state budget. We must find ways from creative financing,” Jokowi said.

The ministry’s infrastructure financing director general, Eko D. Heripoerwanto, said the PPP scheme would account for 54.6 percent or equivalent to Rp 253.4 trillion (US$18.10 billion) of the estimated Rp 482.2 trillion cost for building infrastructure in the new capital in Kalimantan.

The private sector is expected to contribute Rp 123.2 trillion or about 26.2 percent, while the state budget would cover Rp 89.4 trillion (18.5 percent).

“We’re offering the projects [financing] to the private sector first, instead of mainstreaming financing from the state budget because it is limited,” he said during a discussion at the Indonesia Infrastructure Development Financing 2019 on Wednesday.

Eko said that from 2020 until 2024, the agency would need Rp 2.05 quadrillion in investment. However, he said the state budget could only provide one-third of it or an equivalent of Rp. 623 trillion, creating a gap of Rp 1.43
quadrillion.

He hoped that in the next five years, private financing could increase as the government would focus on building infrastructure in the new capital, such as highways, housing and water resource infrastructure, among others.

Eko expects that before 2024, the government will move the capital to Kalimantan. The ministry will build around 307,000 homes for an estimated 1,500 people that would move to the capital, said to be mainly from government offices.

During the discussion, the National Development Planning Agency's (Bappenas) development funding deputy, Kennedy Simanjuntak, also said the country’s infrastructure stock was lagging behind its neighboring counties.

Kennedy said the nation’s infrastructure stock, which stood at 43 percent of GDP, was below the global average of 70 percent.

He said the country needed at least Rp 6.44 quadrillion in investment to increase infrastructure stock to 50 percent in the next five years.

Forty-two percent of the investment would come from the private sector, 37 percent from the government and 21 percent from state-owned enterprises.

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