Jakarta. President Prabowo Subianto has set an ambitious goal of making the freshly launched Danantara among the world's largest sovereign wealth funds.

Prabowo finally launched the long-awaited Danantara at Jakarta's presidential palace complex on Monday morning after several delays over the past few months.

The fund -- which had been waiting for the necessary regulatory framework for launch -- will consolidate the assets of seven major state-owned enterprises. They include state banks Mandiri, BRI, and BNI. Danantara will also have the country's sole electricity provider PLN, state oil and gas company Pertamina, mining giant MIND ID, and telecommunications firm Telkom under its wings.

In his speech, Prabowo revealed his high hopes for Danantara, which is often touted as an investment vehicle akin to Singapore's $288 billion Temasek. Prabowo also admitted that he was unsurprised to see people having doubts over Danantara.

"I know and realize that there are many questions about Danantara Indonesia. This can be expected because this is a new initiative, which is unprecedented in our history. Today, all Indonesians can be proud that Danantara, which will have more than $900 billion worth of assets under management, will be one of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds," Prabowo said.

According to the retired army general, Danantara will start with $20 billion in initial capital which the government has accumulated from the recent budget efficiency measures. Prabowo has ordered his government to cut non-essential spending items. The retired army general also claimed that some of the $20 billion were funds that "were once trapped in corruption".

Danantara will mobilize the initial $20 billion to invest in 20 high-impact projects, including building the production chain of nickel, bauxites, and copper. A portion of the money will also go into artificial intelligence data centers, oil refineries, petrochemical plants, food production, aquaculture, and renewable energy.

Prabowo did not go into details on each project, only saying that the aforementioned sectors "will determine Indonesia's future". However, the resource-rich Indonesia has been working on producing higher-value intermediate and finished products from its minerals. This downstream industry development has been in full swing since Prabowo's predecessor Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's second term. Jokowi even joined Prabowo during Danantara's launch.

The archipelagic country already has the sovereign wealth fund Indonesia Investment Authority (INA), which Jokowi launched in 2021. Previous reports showed that the government was also planning to have Danantara consolidate INA's $10.5 billion worth of assets.

Prabowo has appointed Investment Minister Rosan Roeslani as Danantara's chief executive officer.

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