Indonesia's Danantara: Sovereign wealth or sovereign risk?

The troubling opaqueness of Indonesia’s new ‘superholding’.

- Dipo Satria Ramli

(THE BUSINESS TIMES)

Jakarta is betting its investment-grade future on a US$900 billion (S$1.14 trillion) “black box”. As global oil prices squeeze Indonesia’s fiscal ceiling, President Prabowo Subianto has accelerated a strategy of “State Capitalism 2.0”. At its heart is Danantara, a “superholding” designed to consolidate strategic assets, equivalent to roughly 60 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), into a single engine of national survival.

The sovereign wealth fund now owns and supervises state-owned enterprises in fields ranging from banking to telecommunications and oil and gas with total assets under management exceeding US$900 billion.

Danantara was launched in February 2025. Yet, as the April 2026 filing season passes without a consolidated financial statement, this leviathan is increasingly looking like a source of sovereign risk rather than wealth.