“Mobilizing capital for financing infrastructure has been challenging for some sectors, particularly water resource management, where the infrastructure has been considered to be public assets and private-sector financing hasn’t been successful to date,” said World Bank energy coordinator Stephan Garnier.

Garnier said Thursday during a webinar called Indonesia Public Expenditure Review 2020: Spending for Better Results that inadequate project planning may have also dampened interest from the private sector to invest in transportation.

The government has increasingly been relying on the private sector to take part in developing, financing and managing the country’s ambitious infrastructure projects under the National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN) to ease the strain on the state budget.

The National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) has estimated that the country will need infrastructure investment worth US$429.7 billion, equal to 6.1 percent of GDP, between 2020 and 2024.

The government could only finance 30 percent of the infrastructure projects using the state budget, said the Public Works and Housing Ministry’s financing strategy director, Herry Trisaputra Zuna.

“I believe what we need to do is use our limited budget to encourage the private sector rather than concentrating on conventional [funding] efforts,” Herry said during Thursday’s webinar.

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