Jakarta & Singapore - Sustainable Business Matching

On 7th November 2023, Jakarta Investment Centre (JIC) held a special event to explore the potential investment cooperation between Singaporean companies, private parties, and Regional Owned Enterprises of Jakarta Special Territory. It was a follow-up event of the visitation request from Singapore Business Federation (SBF) on its Overseas Market Workshop Delegates’ Visit to Jakarta Investment Centre.

During the event, Mrs Tona Hutauruk who served as the head of JIC welcomed the delegations of SBF at the venue, JS Luwansa Hotel, Jakarta. Following the welcome, she presented the profile of Jakarta Special Territory after highlighting the positive records of Singapore in investment, business, and urban planning. She mentioned that Singapore was one of the strategic partners for Jakarta and Indonesia, especially in investment and development. She went on to say that Singapore had a variety of potential sources of funding that could be offered to Jakarta, which was thriving as one of the emerging economic hubs in Southeast Asia.

Furthermore, it was stated that Jakarta's commitment as Indonesia's business center in supporting the 2050 NetZero target had opened up more investment opportunities, particularly in significant projects aiming to decarbonization while attaining economic growth and profit. The provision of eco-friendly energy, electric vehicles, batteries, charging stations, infrastructure, and green social programs were some examples of Jakarta's increasingly diverse investment potential. Besides, Mrs Hutauruk added that knowledge transfer was another opportunity that could be realized through such investment-related cooperation.

Jakarta itself was a promising region for investment given its ever-growing investment achievement as stated by Mrs Hutauruk. It was recorded that Jakarta's investment realization in the second quarter of 2023 was USD 5.37 trillion with economic growth of 5.13% in the same period (Ministry of Investment Data as of 2023). Furthermore, through its regional companies, Jakarta has implemented various development programs, including green development projects. Infrastructure, housing, public transportation, clean energy, and waste management were some examples of development projects that had been carried out by Jakarta. In line with that, she affirmed that the Jakarta Provincial Government had been continually expanding its development and business sectors, including by actively seeking strategic funding partners. Closing her presentation, Mrs Hutauruk warmly welcomed any investment opportunities that might come from Singapore Business Federation.

Later, Mr Daud Joseph, Director of Operations and Security at PT Transportation Jakarta provided the information on the attainment of PT Transportation Jakarta as one of the Jakarta-owned enterprises playing a key role in public transportation in the Jakarta region. He stated that PT Transportation Jakarta has grown rapidly with various development programs and achievements. 4623 fleets, 263 routes, 8 types of services, and extensive corridors with a total length of 394.4 km were said to be the accomplishment of PT Transjakarta. He also highlighted the sharp increase trend of rising users from year to year of PT Transjakarta, including when hit by the pandemic.

Further, Mr Daud Joseph brought the investment potential in Jakarta to the forum. Transjakarta had a variety of sustainable investment opportunities which was in line with NetZero Indonesia's 2050 target. Transjakarta itself was said to reach 100% electric vehicle usage by 2030, in which the use of electric-based transportation modes was still 100 units or 2.3% of the total transportation modes owned as of now. Such a figure was said to continually increase until the total expected realization target in 2050. Apart from that, Mr Daud Joseph mentioned that Transjakata had also expanded into the business lines of solar panels, charging stations and maritime shipping expeditions.

Upon the completion of Mr Daud’s presentation, Mr Akbar Ramdani who serves as the Director of Jakarta LRT Project at Jakpro took the stage and unveiled the projects that were being done by Jakpro and the DKI Jakarta Government. Jakpro itself is the abbreviation of PT Jakarta Propertindo, a property, infrastructure, utilities and information technology company owned by the DKI Jakarta Provincial Government. He also highlighted the investment opportunities in Jakpro during his presentation of Jakpro’s profile and its upcoming projects.

He said that the DKI Jakarta Government and Jakpro were working together to encourage the transition from private vehicles to public transportation by providing public transportation with integrated infrastructure. He mentioned Jakarta LRT, one of the projects that was currently being developed, had provided efficient, reliable and good quality public transportation. He went on to say that the efforts to develop the project were still ongoing and potential investment from either domestic or foreign sources was open for project expansion.

He added that LRT aimed to be affordable, accessible, comfortable and safe for passengers as an attempt to encourage new behavior in transportation usage. At this point, Jakpro as the main developer was trying to provide a low carbon environment to the residents of DKI Jakarta. It planned to ensure that, in the forthcoming years, all Jakarta LRT stations would have interconnected routes equipped with payment systems and transit facilities that were integrated with other public transportation services. Mr Akbar said that by doing such action, it was expected that more people would use public transportation.

Lastly, Mr Muhammad Raihan as the head of TOD Business Generation Department of PT MRT Jakarta delivered his presentation, which was mainly concerned on investment opportunities in a number of strategic projects in Jakarta, to the forum. He opened his presentation with the emphasis on the green economy concept, which was currently in use in the corporate governance of PT MRT Jakarta. He then informed the sustainable initiative in PT MRT Jakarta, particularly the projects on transit-oriented development.

The forum was closed with the networking event that was moderated by an SBF representative. All delegations of SBF were introduced and given time to briefly describe their business entities as well as their upcoming projects. All delegations of SBF included: