RI gets US$500,000 in assistance from ADB

Esther Samboh, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, Mon, 09/19/2011

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has announced plans to channel grants and loans to improve the Indonesian government’s capacity in developing infrastructure projects through public and private partnership (PPP).

“The technical assistance, amounting to US$500,000, provided by the government of Japan through the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction (JFPR) will support the government in preparing PPP projects that are economically sound, financially attractive to private sector financiers and affordable to the government,” the Manila-based regional development lender says in a statement released Monday.

The technical assistance is planned to be implemented in 2011, with the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) as an executing agency and Sarana Multi Infrastruktur

state infrastructure fund manager being responsible for implementing the activities.

ADB’s technical assistance program is aimed at assisting developing countries in planning and executing projects that it finances with grants and loans, its website says.

“This will support the government’s objective in increasing the number and value of commercially attractive and sustainable PPP projects offered to the private sector,” ADB's principal infrastructure specialist Bob Finlayson said.

The government is seeking to mobilize about $140 million worth of investment in infrastructure over the next five years, of which 60 percent is to be sourced from the private sector. While the government has developed a number of PPP projects, they have not attracted significant market interest due to concerns over project design, preparations and implementation, the ADB statement says.