JAKARTA - British Prime Minister David Cameron sought to forge closer business ties with Indonesia on Tuesday, saying British investment could easily double if deals can be clinched on infrastructure projects. Indonesia is Cameron’s first stop on a four-day trade mission to Southeast Asia to spur lucrative business deals and encourage new political alliances to counter Islamist militancy. Britain, Indonesia’s fifth largest foreign investor, is particularly interested in investing in Indonesia’s infrastructure, insurance and Internet services industries. “When Indonesia announced its 276 billion pound infrastructure plan, the next opportunity for British businesses became clear,” Cameron told a Jakarta forum of government and business officials from both countries, according to a pool report. Cameron highlighted Britain’s 15 billion pound ($25 billion) Crossrail project, that will connect Heathrow airport west of London to the county of Essex in the east, through 42 km (26 miles) of new tunnels, as an example of the expertise it can bring to Indonesia’s traffic-clogged capital. He also lobbied officials to allow British companies to help build infrastructure for Indonesia to host the Asian Games in 2018. Britain ships only 0.2 percent of its total exports to Indonesia but last year invested $1.6 billion, excluding the banking and energy sectors. “We could frankly double, triple, quadruple that number without making a huge change to the overall picture,” Cameron said. “The scale of the opportunity here is immense.” On Monday, the prime minister met President Joko Widodo and announced that the British government would make available up to 1 billion pounds of export finance credit to Indonesia. But for Indonesia, the problem with fixing dilapidated roads, ports and bridges is not about the money. The Indonesian government has struggled to spend its own budgeted funds due to bureaucratic infighting and burdensome red tape. “I say to my ministers if you want to introduce a regulation, you want to cut two regulations first. I made that as a free offer to Indonesian ministers as a great idea,” Cameron said.