World Bank–ASEAN Workshop: Making Mineral Projects Investment-Ready
24 – 25 June 2026, Bandung, Indonesia
By Myriam El Kara
Founder Sterling Acumen as Guest Speaker at World Bank–ASEAN Workshop on Investment-Ready Mineral Projects
In June 2026, I was invited to speak at the Indonesia In-Country Workshop on Investment-Ready Minerals Project Promotion in Bandung. The workshop formed part of the ASEAN Minerals Cooperation Action Plan 2026–2030 (AMCAP IV) and was facilitated by Indonesia’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, with support from the World Bank’s Resilient and Inclusive Supply Chain Enhancement (RISE) initiative and the ASEAN Secretariat.
Indonesia was the first pilot country in a broader ASEAN programme aimed at improving mineral investment promotion, building shared understanding of investor requirements and developing more consistent project-promotion materials across the region.
Sterling Acumen’s session focused on international practices in promoting mineral investment projects and structuring investment-ready project profiles.
A central message was that technical readiness is not the same as investment readiness. A project may have advanced geology, engineering and permitting work but remain difficult to finance if its product route, buyer universe, policy exposure, infrastructure requirements or commercial structure remain unresolved.
The presentation explored how different governments, investors and industrial buyers assess mineral projects, why “criticality” is increasingly buyer-defined, and how policy, ownership, traceability and supply-chain eligibility have become part of commercial due diligence.
I also proposed a practical structure for investor-facing project profiles, covering asset identity, resource confidence, development pathway, infrastructure, product and market route, financeability, ESG and traceability evidence, and compatibility with relevant policy regimes.
At a regional level, the discussion explored where ASEAN countries could cooperate, through shared data disciplines, traceability approaches, trade corridors and complementary processing routes, while retaining national control over fiscal policy, ownership, permitting and industrial strategy.
The wider workshop brought together representatives from government, provincial authorities, state-owned enterprises, development finance institutions and the private sector to exchange practical approaches to improving mineral project readiness across ASEAN.
