Jakarta. A recent survey shows that 62.3 percent of the respondents believe in the freshly minted sovereign wealth fund Danantara's transparency.

A few weeks ago, President Prabowo Subianto launched Danantara, which would start by consolidating the assets of seven state-run enterprises. Danantara will get $20 billion in initial capital for high-impact projects such as nickel processing, petrochemical plants, renewable energy, and oil refinery. Danantara is poised to be among the world's largest sovereign wealth funds as its assets under management are expected to top $900 billion especially after it has all state-run enterprises under its wings.

Pollster KedaiKOPI recently conducted a survey regarding investments among 900 respondents on Feb. 20-27. The government had launched Danantara on Feb. 24.

"Our survey shows that 62.3 percent trust Danantara's transparency. About 37.7 percent still have doubts [about Danantara]," KedaiKOPI's research director Ibnu Dwi Cahyo said in Jakarta on Wednesday, as reported by the state news agency Antara.

The survey also listed on the reasons behind the public trust in Danantara. About 27.2 percent of the approving respondents said they were optimistic about the government. Some 10 percent trusted the fund's top brass' professionalism, while 19.4 percent cited "better supervision" as to why they admitted to trust Danantara's transparency.

KedaiKOPI also revealed that 35.5 percent of the respondents were worried about the possible corruption from Danantara. Some 13.6 percent attributed their doubt to the lack of information regarding the regulations.

Prabowo has picked Investment Minister Rosan Roeslani to be the chief executive officer to Danantara. Earlier this week, Rosan revealed that the superholding would only pick investment-ready projects. In other words, Danantara will take into account the project's return, possible import reduction, land availability, to make sure that it is really worth investing. Rosan had previously promised that Danantara would manage the investment with good governance and transparency.

Danantara will start by consolidating the assets of seven major state-owned enterprises. They are state banks Mandiri, BRI, BNI; the country's sole electricity provider PLN; oil and gas company Pertamina; mining giant MIND ID; telecommunications firm Telkom. The remaining government-run businesses are expected to be under Danantara by the end of this month.

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