Mideast investment in Indonesia meagre: ex-envoy

The Peninsula, 9/22/2007 0:17:28

Abdul Wahid Maktub

DOHA: Investment from the GCC and the rest of the Middle East in Indonesia, which is the world's most populous Muslim country, is quite low, rues a former Indonesian ambassador to Qatar.

Abdul Wahid Maktub, who left Doha early this year having served as Jakarta's envoy for a little more than three years, was here on a brief private visit.

He told this newspaper in a brief interview late last week: "There are misperceptions in the Middle East about the safety of investments back in our country. The misgivings need to be removed."

Having recovered from the financial crisis of the late 1990s, Indonesia is making rapid economic strides. The economic growth rate has been 6.5 per cent and expected to shortly climb to seven per cent.

Maktub, who is practising as a legal consultant in the Indonesian capital-Jakarta now, said that he was on a visit to the region to attract investments back home, especially in the booming real estate market. "I have been to Saudi Arabia and now I am here," he said.

One of the biggest achievements to his credit has been that Dubai's real estate giant, Emaar, has agreed to make an initial investment of $800m in a massive city project in Lombok island, which is close to Bali. "Emaar has recently set up an office in Jakarta," said Maktub.

Here, he said he met Sheikh Faisal bin Qassem Al Thani, Chairman of the Qatari Businessmen's Association, and urged him to pay a visit to Indonesia to explore avenues of investment. "He has accepted the invitation," said the former envoy.

"When I had met Emaar's chief, I had only requested him to visit Indonesia. When he visited Lombok, the first thing he did was pray and immediately after that he told me that he was going to develop a city on this virgin and breathtakingly beautiful island," said Maktub.

Saudi Arabia's Bin Laden Group, he said, has given sub-contract for a 60-storey building it is developing in Dubai, to an Indonesian construction company and is quite happy with its work.

A lot of western countries are investing in real estate projects in Indonesia, but a disappointing thing is that the investment inflow from the Gulf and the rest of the Middle East is nil or negligible. It is because businessmen here have misperceptions about the country. There is so much idle money here and a lot of business and investment opportunities in Indonesia.

"Ours is a huge country. It takes eight hours to fly from the easternmost point to the west. You can, thus, imagine how big the country is, and so are the possibilities of doing business and making investments," said Maktub.

"We are adopting a practical strategy. We want businessmen here to simply visit Indonesia and the rest would automatically follow."

Also with Maktub was Gunawa Witjaksono, one of the top real estate developers of Indonesia.