PEOPLE AWAIT REALIZATION OF MARITIME 'TOLL ROAD'

By Andi Abdussalam

Jakarta, July 14 (Antara) - The people, particularly businesspeople, are awaiting the realization of a maritime supercorridor transportation system that will link thousands of Indonesian islands from the eastern to the Western regions, cutting freight costs up to 50 percent.          The concept of the maritime supercorridor has been prepared by the current government in what it calls 'Pendulum Nusantara' (Archipelago Pendulum) program where large tonnage ships with cargoes or passengers serve main sea lanes and call at six major seaports located in areas stretching from the eastern to western parts of the country.          The government hopes the sea corridor will help smooth the implementation of the national connectivity program as regulated in Presidential Instruction No. 26/2013 on National Logistics System.          In a recent presidential debate, presidential candidate Joko Widodo, better known as Jokowi, revealed his program on the sea transportation system, which he called 'Maritime Toll Road' scheme, a sea lane transportation system which is more or less the same as the  'Pendulum Nusantara' concept.          Therefore, the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) supported the idea of Jokowi to follow up the sea lane development program, as the current maritime-based national connectivity scheme designed to boost economic development and growth has yet to be implemented.            Kadin Chairman for Regional Economic Empowerment Natsir Mansyur said on Monday that the failure to implement the maritime-based national connectivity program will create inefficiency in national economy.          Because the maritime-based connectivity had not yet been in place, it had resulted in high cost of inter insular cargo transportation, high cost of logistics, and low competitiveness.          Earlier, Alan F Koropitan, the director of the Oceanography Study and Marine Technology Center of the University of Surya, Tangerang (Banten province) said that the 'Maritime Toll Road' concept offered by Jokowi will be able to resolve challenges faced in developing the national connectivity.          "The Sea Toll Road idea is a good concept for resolving the problem faced in developing the connectivity of an archipelago country. It will be able to solve the problem of high logistics transportation cost and narrow the economic disparities among islands," said Alan Koropitan.          Based on the government's super corridor or the archipelago pendulum concept, six large seaports will serve as the main points of the sea transportation in the country.          Last year, then chief economic minister Hatta Rajasa said that based a survey, the length of dwelling time of cargoes at Indonesian ports in the 2011 - 2012 period was between 4.7 and 6.7 days. This was caused by weaknesses such as the absence of integrated system among agencies at seaports.          Hatta Rajasa, who is now the running mate of presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto, said that the Pendulum Nusantara system is expected to reduce freight costs by at least 50 percent and to shorten cargo dwelling time at ports from about seven days to four days only.          This system will facilitate large tonnage ships to call at major ports to unload cargoes to be delivered by supporting smaller ships through an integrated system to smaller parts of the country or to smaller regions.          The six major seaports which will be managed in an integrated system are Belawan of Medan in North Sumatra, Batam which shares a border with Singapore, Tanjung Priok port of Jakarta, Tanjung Perak port of East Java, Makassar port of South Sulawesi and Sorong port of Papua.          In the meantime, presidential hopeful Jokowi in his recent debate promised to set aside Rp15 trillion to build "maritime toll road" if he won the presidential race.      What Jokowi means by maritime toll road is sea lane between the western and eastern parts of the country to be served regularly by cargo ships that would abolish or reduce the wide price difference between the country's more developed west and backward east.          Jokowi said  currently the prices of goods could be 30 times more expensive in the east than in the west.  He cited cement price is around Rp55,000 per sack in Jakarta but in Papua the price could be as high as Rp1.5 million.          Economist Iman Sugema, who is a member of the economic team of Jokowi and his running mate Jusuf Kalla (JK)  said the project will need an injection of Rp15 trillion from the state budget.          Iman said the budget of the project to be provided by the government would be only 30 percent of the total cost.  The remaining 70 percent is expected to come in capital participation by the banking sector, he said.          He said the project will include distribution lane for cargoes from 10 new hub ports yet to be built to various small ports that logistic system could be more efficient and effective.          "After all ports have been connected, goods from a port such as Makassar to be sent to Palu could be larger volume," the economist from the Bogor Institute of Agriculture  said.          At least  Jokowi  and Jusuf Kalla have pledged, if they won the election, to build 10 new ports  and deep sea ports including in eastern Indonesian regions, he said.          The toll lane  would extend  from Belawan of North Sumatra,  Batam of Riau Islands, Cilamaya of West Java, Makassar of South Sulawesi and Sorong of West Papua.         "The ports including deep sea ports would be the first to be built before procuring the ships," Iman said.          Ships to be used to serve the toll lanes would be the Post Panamax type with a capacity of 5,101-10,000 TEUs (Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit).         According to Kadin Chairman for Regional Economic Empowerment Natsir Mansyur, the program should be supported by middle capacity ships with a dead weight tonnage of 5,000.         He said that the program will require about 500 units of ships of that size to transport bulk oil and gas, food, agricultural products, and other cargo. It should also be supported with adequate seaports.         Natsir said that ships serving the country now were relatively old or over 15 years, so that their operations were no longer efficient.         Therefore, the Kadin chairman called on the relevant ministries to seriously take steps to realize the program, as it will boost the development of economic growth in the region. It will also help Indonesia in preparing itself in the face of the ASEAN Economic Community in 2015.          The program, he said, will have extensive impact on the development of regional economy.***2*** (T.A014/B003/B003) (T.SYS/A/BESSR/Bustanuddin) 14-07-2014 23:34: