Jakarta. Deputy Housing Minister Fahri Hamzah recently said that Japan had shown interest in investing in President Prabowo Subianto’s plan to build 3 million affordable homes annually.

Fahri’s statement put Japan on the list of potential foreign investors -- joining China, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) -- interested in building homes targeted at Indonesia’s low-income families. Fahri claimed that the low interest rate that this program offered was what had caught the Japanese investors’ attention.

“These [Japanese investors] whispered to me about how the interest rate was pretty low. So there is a possibility of Japan being quite involved in the program [by investing],” Fahri said in Jakarta on Tuesday.

At present, the program has already secured Qatari investment. Just last week, Sheikh Abdulaziz Al Thani of Qatar’s Qilaa International Group signed a deal to invest in 1 million homes in Indonesia under a government-to-government partnership scheme. The Qatari investment will mainly go into building vertical housing units. Fahri claimed that Qatar was actually interested in investing in up to 6 million homes. Fahri said that the UAE had previously promised to help Indonesia construct 1 million housing units.

“But I think the UAE wants to invest more, especially after they heard that Qatar wanted to increase its investments [to 6 million homes],” Fahri said.

Public Housing Task Force chairman Hashim Djojohadikusumo had previously revealed China’s investment pledge for the program.

The government is targeting low-income households who earn less than Rp 8 million ($491), especially those working in the informal sector. Prabowo aims to build 2 million affordable homes in rural areas and 1 million in cities a year in hopes of solving the country’s housing shortage.

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