Indonesia’s Bali financial hub ‘a matter of survival’: economic tsar

Luhut Pandjaitan wants investors to imagine kamikaze drones over Abu Dhabi, then picture themselves in Bali instead

A friend recently sent him a photograph of kamikaze drones lighting up the skies over Abu Dhabi, accompanied by a plea: help us get out.

“They said ‘We’d like to move our assets, we’d love very much to stay away from here and live in Bali, because it’s so peaceful in Bali’,” he recalled. “The Middle East conflict is not going to end next month or next year, I don’t believe that.”

Speaking to This Week in Asia on the sidelines of the Nusa Dua Forum in Bali on July 17, the 78-year-old chairman of Indonesia’s National Economic Council was a study in moustachioed calm – a far cry from the crisis of confidence that has roiled Southeast Asia’s largest economy this year.