Economic and investment cooperation agreements had been signed between Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates as a result of the working visit by President Joko Widodo to the oil rich region.
Doha (ANTARA News) - The government wants to move fast to bring to reality economic cooperation agreements made with a number of Middle East countries.

Economic and investment cooperation agreements had been signed between Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates as a result of the working visit by President Joko Widodo to the oil rich region.

Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Suydirman Said has been assigned to follow up agreements in investment.

"The President has asked me to follow up the agreements with technical implementation. This is a difficult duty with the myth that funds from Middle East did not easily come to Indonesia," Sudirman said here on Monday night.

He said there are a number of cooperation agreements to be followed up immediately citing agreement between PJB, the subsidiary of the state power utility company PLN, and Nebras Power of Qatar.

Nebras agreed to build gas powered power plant with a capacity of 2x250 megawatts in North Sumatra to cost around US$750 million.

Meanwhile, Pertamina signed an agreement with Saudi oil company Aramco to optimize Pertaminas oil refineries in Cilacap, Balongan and Dumai to cost US$11.5 billion.

The capacity optimization of the three refineries is expected to increase the processing capacity of the countrys oil refineries by 450,000 barrels per day.

Aramco also had made an investment commitment of US$12.8 billion to building two new oil refineries, Sudirman said.

"Middle East investors are also interested in investing in port infrastructure . The opportunity is being studied with Pelindo III. We offer various projects in Lombok. The prospects are also goods for financial cooperation," he said.

Sudirman said he would form team with members from the business sector and officials of related government agencies to handle the job of seeking to bring to reality all the investment agreements.

President Joko Widodo wants that in a month there has been a list of projects with details ready for implementation.

Dubai Port already had invested in the expansion of the Surabaya Container Terminal .

The president wanted to apply the cooperation system for the expansion of the Bagan Siapi Api port in Riau.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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