1. Infrastructure Investment in Indonesia — The Economic Context

Located in South-East Asia between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, Indonesia represents the world’s largest archipelagic country. Its 17,000 equatorial islands, of which only 6,000 are inhabited, experience a tropical climate characterised by high rainfall, humidity and temperatures. The country is rich in natural resources including coal, minerals, gold, copper, nickel, oil, gas and fertile land (giving rise to agricultural products). It is also prone to natural disasters and home to the most volcanoes of any country in the world, with more than 75% of the population living within 100 km of a Holocene volcano (active within the last 11,700 years) (Smithsonian Institution 2015). For example, in early August 2018 a series of earthquakes and aftershocks hit the island of Lombok displacing an estimated 20,000 people.