Indonesia will turn to private investors for the hundreds of billions of dollars in investment needed to develop the archipelago’s infrastructure and natural resources, President Joko Widodo said, brushing off claims he was increasingly becoming an economic nationalist.All major projects will be offered to the private sector, Widodo, also known as Jokowi, told Bloomberg Television’s Haslinda Amin on Saturday in an interview on a hilltop overlooking the picturesque Lake Toba.

Indonesia is on track to become a trillion-dollar economy and should be the envy of Southeast Asia. Yet on some key measures, the region’s biggest economy is falling behind.The nation lags its neighbours on infrastructure development, faces a fiscal shortfall that’s heaping pressure on the state budget and still has 28 million people living in poverty.

Malaysia, and to a lesser degree Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines, remain more exposed to exchange rate risk than other developing economies in East Asia and the Pacific as global financial conditions tighten, the World Bank said.Companies and banks in these countries have sizeable external debt, although foreign exchange reserves currently appear adequate, the Washington-based multilateral lender said in a report on Wednesday.