Indonesia’s New Sovereign Wealth Fund: When Strategic Development Converges with Stabilization

Abstract

Indonesia’s latest attempt to reintroduce an investment management agency emerged as the government undertook a significant overhaul of its investment strategy in providing a vehicle to accommodate foreign investment. While the agency had been categorically set as a hybrid model of a stabilization fund as well as a strategic development fund, the interplay between these two objectives remains to be seen by virtue of implementing the agency’s mandate stated in the Job Creation law and its implementing regulations. As the fund has been slated to receive large sums to cater to the ambitious government-led initiative, there is a heightened urgency to dissect the investment management policies that the agency will adopt to achieve its goals and sustain its presence. Upon reference to similar entities in other jurisdictions and the commonly adopted governance principles for sovereign wealth funds, this paper has found that the Indonesian government’s reforms should adhere to those that have been internationally embraced, while adjusting them to the relevant circumstances that the Indonesian agency is geared to achieve.