Eagle Hills gets claws into Indonesia

Alamy via Reuters

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Eagle Hills, the Abu Dhabi developer, looks set to add Indonesia to its burgeoning worldwide portfolio.

A tentative agreement was signed on Wednesday with the Indonesian government to develop $3 billion worth of tourism assets in the Southeast Asian archipelago.

The deal has a validity of one year only, with the possibility of renewal, and does not lay out any specific timeline for construction. 

The announcement is the latest in a growing list of multi-billion dollar projects that Eagle Hills has embarked upon across the Middle East, Europe, Africa and, now, Asia.

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“Indonesia has significant potential due to its resources and tourism destinations,” Eagle Hills chairman Mohamed Alabbar said. 

“Indonesia can be competitive and increase its proportion of the tourism sector’s contribution to the GDP – Eagle Hills would like to support this endeavour.” 

Alabbar, who founded Dubai’s preeminent developer Emaar Properties, is one of the biggest names in Gulf real estate.

• Eagle Hills launches $1.5bn golf resort in Baghdad
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This year alone Eagle Hills has committed $1.5 billion to build a golf resort in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, $4 billion to develop real estate across Bahrain, $3 billion to transform the waterfront of Riga, the Latvian capital, and $5.5 billion to revive a downtrodden area of Budapest, in Hungary.  

The company has also established a similarly ambitious presence in Albania, Egypt, Serbia, Morocco, Oman, Jordan and Ethiopia.

UAE president Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and outgoing Indonesian president Joko Widodo oversaw the signing of the memorandum of understanding.

Development or renovations of hospitality and residential properties as well as related infrastructure, including Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, are the targets of the deal.

“This partnership aligns perfectly with our national strategy to diversify our economy and establish Indonesia as a premier global tourism destination,” Indonesia’s minister of state-owned enterprises, Erick Thohir, said. 

“We are confident that this collaboration will not only boost our infrastructure but also create significant employment opportunities and drive sustainable economic growth across our beautiful archipelago.”

Another Abu Dhabi firm, the state-owned clean energy company Masdar, invested an undisclosed amount of money in February 2023 in Pertamina Geothermal Energy in Jakarta. PGE is among the biggest players in Indonesia’s geothermal energy sector, the second largest in the world.