Prabowo Plans Sweeping Investments With Giant New Indonesia Fund.

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto said an ambitious new sovereign wealth fund will start operations this month, with a sweeping mandate to invest across a range of industries as he steps up efforts to boost annual growth to his goal of 8%.

An “initial evaluation” shows that the fund will have more than $900 billion in assets under management, Prabowo said in an online speech to the World Governments Summit on Thursday. He didn’t give a timeline to achieve that scale, which would be more than 90 times the size of an existing vehicle and make it one of the world’s biggest sovereign funds, alongside the likes of Singapore’s GIC Pte., which has built its global portfolio over more than four decades.

But the president said Daya Anagata Nusantara, or Danantara, will invest in projects including renewable energy, advanced manufacturing, downstream industries and food production, Prabowo said in the speech, which was posted online Thursday evening.

“The fund, which will be launched on Feb. 24, will invest our natural resources and state assets into sustainable, high impact projects across sectors,” Prabowo said. “All these projects will contribute to achieving our committed target of 8% economic growth.”

Danantara will have an initial investment cash fund of $20 billion this year. “We plan to start something like between 15-20 multi-billion dollar projects, which will create significant value add for us,” Prabowo said. “I am very confident. I’m very bullish.”

Source: FINANCE.YAHOO