ABU DHABI: Indonesia is targeting $10 billion (Dh36.7 billion) investments from the UAE in a wide range of sectors including oil and gas, hospitality and power generation, the country’s ambassador, Husin Bagis, told Gulf News in an interview on Thursday.
Currently a number of UAE-based companies are investing in Indonesia including Mubadala Petroleum, Lulu Group, DP World and Dubai Islamic Bank.
The total investments from the UAE are around $2 billion with Mubadala and Lulu Group investing about $500 million each in oil and gas and retail sectors respectively.
Mubadala Petroleum is developing the Ruby gasfield in Makassar in partnership with Total and Inpex South Makassar Limited whereas Lulu group is setting up hypermarkets and cold storage facilities.
There are also other investments from the UAE in agriculture, hospitality, transportation, telecommunication, food, mining and textile industries.
“Indonesia with a healthy growth rate of more than five per cent per annum offers plenty of opportunities for UAE-based companies to invest. We are in talks with large companies like Mubadala, Dubai Holdings, Masdar, Abu Dhabi Terminals, NMC group as well as small firms to boost investments from the UAE. Our target is $10 billion this year,” said Bagis.
He said a high-level team from renewable energy company Masdar would be visiting Indonesia soon to look for potential opportunities to develop clean energy projects.
According to the Indonesian Embassy in Abu Dhabi, the Indonesian government is targeting to increase the usage of renewable energy in the total energy mix from 19.6 per cent to 22.5 per cent by 2025.
“Qatar is investing quite heavily in Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia signed deals worth more than $9 billion recently. We would like to see investments from the UAE to grow to $10 billion from the present figure of $2 billion,” he said.
The ambassador highlighted sectors like oil and gas, tourism and power generation for further investments from the UAE.
The bilateral trade between Indonesia and the UAE is about $2.9 billion for the year 2016, down by about 10 per cent compared to the previous year, according to statistics provided by the embassy.
Indonesia exports cars, textiles, jewellery among others things to the UAE, whereas it imports oil and gas and chemical products.
The ambassador expects the trade figure to jump to about $4 billion in the coming years as the country seeks to strengthen its ties with the UAE.
