Jakarta, April 26, 2010 – For the second time in a matter of weeks, a world leader has postponed a trip to Indonesia. China’s Premier Wen Jiabao moved his visit to the country following China’s Qinghai earthquake. Last month, US President Barack Obama postponed his visit to Jakarta to usher through healthcare legislation at home. But Gita Wirjawan, Indonesia’a head of the government investment board, says the country is ready and waiting for more foreign investors. The US educated music virtuoso and former JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs investment banker is tasked with attracting more foreign investment to the country, and he’s optimistic about his country’s economic prospects. Southeast Asia’s biggest economy grew by 4.5% last year, third only behind China and India among the world’s major economies, and the government expect a significant uptick in foreign investment in 2010, particularly from the US and China. Mr Wirjawan, who helped create a one stop shop that aims to cut through red tape and create a faster path for investors to get business licences talked with The Wall Street Journal’s Almar Latour in Jakarta about promoting new opportunities to investors while also managing investor expectations-an approach he calls “positive realism.”

WSJ : What’s your main challenge when trying to attract foreign investors to Indonesia?

Mr. Wirjawan : We try to raise the awareness level of Indonesia. But we’ve got to do it within reason. We can’t allow the pendulum to swing from one side to the other too quickly, because then we will have problems of managing expectations and delivery. We’re doing that by talking to opinion makers in developed markets in Washington and other American cities, in the political domain, to academics, to the business community-and also in European markets, particularly in London. We follow the money. We pitch positive realism. We encourage them to hear testimonies from Asean countries, Taiwan, Korea-people that have had a good taste of Indonesia. But we’re trying not to oversell Indonesia.

WSJ : Does it matter to your mission that the Obama visit was pushed back?

Mr. Wirjawan : Visits by Obama, Wen Jiabao and leaders of big countries will help increase the level of awareness. It doesn’t matter that (Obama’s visit) got pushed back. I think (Obama’s eventual visit) will help tremendously, in terms of creating a new awareness level. There is still a lot of people in the US who don’t know where Indonesia is, what it is all about. There is still a lot of people who know Indonesia as a country of terrorism, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, and all the negativities. That’s OK to acknowledge, but at the same time there needs to be a recognition for the good things that we’re all about.

WSJ : What’s the government’s main challenge when it comes to growth?

Mr. Wirjawan : The question is: Are we going to be able to come up with the right set of policies to boost investments so we can truly become an investment-driven economy? If we don’t do it, it’s going to be problematic for us. We only have a few years.

WSJ : Indonesia recently got a credit-rating upgrade. Do you expect it to become investment grade?

Mr. Wirjawan : (The upgrade) is a really big deal for us. We’re one notch away from investment grade. To the extent we reach the investment grade, it is so important that we go back to where we were pre-crisis in 1997. That’s going to bring down cost of capital tremendously. It’s going to open up a huge pool of capital that’s been prohibited by policy from investing in non investment grade previously.

WSJ : Is Indonesia ready for an influx of capital?

Mr. Wirjawan : I think we’re ready. We will manage it by channeling it to certain sectors that we believe will yield value to everybody, Indonesia and investors: food security, energy security and infrastructure. And I think beyond that we can start looking at ICT (information and communication technologies), at value added services. That’s an area that will come after the commencement of large scale industrialization in Indonesia.

WSJ : Have you brought any lessons or skills from your life as a banker to the world of government?

Mr. Wirjawan : Yes, a lot of best practices that I adopted in my previous life, such as process management. At JP Morgan or at Goldman Sach, when you have a deliverable, you always have that mindset of getting it done in a defined time. In government you don’t have that every time. But I think adopting some of that mentality will help.

Almar Latour reported for The Wall Street Journal.