Linking 17,000 Islands in Indonesia Tests a Nation on the Rise

Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s reputation as one of the world’s most popular leaders was forged partly through promises to modernise infrastructure in Indonesia, with its vast natural resources and massive mines. But state-run builders are increasingly feeling the strain from unmanageable debt loads. The president’s build-at-all-costs attitude “would be correct only if the development follows good planning and calculation, which many of Jokowi’s infrastructure projects seem to skip,” said Sulfikar Amir, an infrastructure expert at NTU in Singapore. “It’s no surprise that some of the projects were completed but with low utilisation rate.”

Read here for the article.