(Dec 29): President Joko Widodo is planning to raise his target for Indonesia’s new wealth fund to as much as US$100 billion in funding next year, according to people familiar with the matter.
Jokowi discussed the new goal, raised from the previously announced 225 trillion rupiah (US$16 billion), in meetings with government officials and political allies as recently as early December, said the people, who asked not to be named, as they’re not authorised to speak on the matter.
Southeast Asia’s largest economy is betting on big-ticket projects to drive a turnaround in the economy next year, with the fund named Nusantara Investment Authority set to play a key role in financing them.
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The CEO of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, Adam Boehler, said last week that the United States could increase its development aid to Indonesia by $1-2 billion more. In an interview with Bloomberg, Boehler revealed that the United States is talking to Indonesia about recognizing Israel, but Indonesia denied it was planning on normalizing relations with Israel, but similar denials were made by Sudan, Morocco, Oman and Qatar before establishing ties with Israel.
Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world. About 86 percent of its 267 million residents are Muslims, the vast majority of them Sunni, and it is a senior member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. The organization has 57 member states, which have a total population of over 1.8 billion people. The organization does have any operative authority, and most of its power lies in its reflecting the sentiments of Muslims on contempora
Likud Minister Ofir Akunis in Jerusalem on May 28, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
A minister in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud said Wednesday that Israel was pushing to normalize relations with another Muslim country before US President Donald Trump leaves office next month.
Regional Cooperation Minister Ofir Akunis said two countries were considered the favorites to soon reach a rapprochement with Israel, but refused to name them.
“It will be an interesting country,” he told the Ynet news site.
Akunis said one of the country’s was in the Gulf and could be Oman, but wasn’t Saudi Arabia. Oman, which has praised the US-brokered normalization deals and hosted Netanyahu for a visit in 2018, has been rumored in recent months to be among the next Arab states that could establish formal ties with Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Yahya Cholil Staquf, secretary general of the 60-million member Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s largest Muslim organization, at his office in Jerusalem. Photo: Haim Zach/GPO.
i24 News – The US administration offered to increase the development aid Indonesia receives by up to $2 billion if it normalizes its ties with Israel,
Bloomberg reported Tuesday.
The agency cited Adam Boehler, CEO of the US International Development Finance Corporation, as saying the offer had been extended to Jakarta by the administration of US President Donald Trump in a bid to promote Israel’s normalization in the Muslim world.
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