Chinese Premier Li, who is currently in Indonesia promised to increase Chinese investment there by $21.7 billion, according to a government official.
Li came to Jakarta on Tuesday in order to meet with Indonesian officials and take part in the three-day ASEAN conference.Li was received by President Joko Widodo on Friday at the colonial-style Merdeka palace in Jakarta, where they spoke about ways to increase trade and investment. In order to relocate Indonesia’s capital from crowded and polluted Jakarta on the main island of Java to Nusantara on Borneo Island, he requested China’s assistance.
Following the meeting, the fresh Chinese investment pledge—which follows a prior $44.89 billion investment commitment made when Widodo met Chinese President Xi Jinping in July—was made public by Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi. The new investment’s specifics were not disclosed.Marsudi claimed that Widodo pushed China, Indonesia’s largest trade and investment partner, to “realize these commitments immediately” and encouraged it to consider investing in other industries, like fisheries and the sea.
Six other agreements on e-commerce, enterprise support, industrial cooperation, agriculture, fishing, and research and technology were also signed under the supervision of the two presidents, according to Marsudi.
Li rode a portion of Indonesia’s new $7.3 billion high-speed rail line on Wednesday. The rail was largely financed with loans from China. It is a part of China’s Belt and Road development program and connects Jakarta to Bandung, the densely populated capital of West Java state. The first high-speed train in SoutheastThe train will start operating for commercial purposes on October 1 and reduce the current three-hour travel time between the cities to roughly 40 minutes.
