The road rollout is central to the government’s ambitious plans for more than US$400 billion of building projects to modernise Indonesia under President Widodo, when he begins his second term this October.

The extensive sprawl of Indonesia, a nation dispersed across 17,000 islands, is a logistical nightmare and can send the cost of everyday items soaring and hampering development in hard-to-access locations. Therefore, the only way to generate faster economic growth is through connectivity, Planning Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said.

More than half of the new toll roads will be rolled out on Sumatra to connect the two ends of the enormous island. 

Apart from highways, the regulator is also studying the possibility of building a bridge from peninsular Malaysia to Sumatra, and a bridge connecting Singapore to Bintan island.