Jakarta, Jan 18 (ANTARA) - Thursday's flooding in Jakarta, the second
worst after the one in 2007 which killed 80 residents and caused a loss
of Rp4.3 trillion, prompted business makers to call for government
protection of businesses from floods.
"Jakarta as a capital city is the show window of Indonesia's business.
The government must give a priority to the handling of floods and their
impact so that Indonesia would not get bad image in the eyes of
investors," Sofjan Wanandi, the chairman of the Indonesian businessmen
Association (Apindo), said on Friday.
He said such a flood would become the focus of world attention. After
all, the flooding reached the State Palace on Thursday when President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono received Argentine President Cristina Fernandez
de Kirchner. Their meeting had to be rescheduled due to the flood.
As a trade partner, Cristina was accompanied by a 71-member delegation
and 230 Argentinean businessmen. "Although both sides agreed to enhance
relations, yet the implementation of the agreement will remain to depend
on the conditions in fields, such as investment climate and
infrastructures which support economic activities," Sofjan asserted.
Therefore, businesses urged the government to give serious attention to
the problem of floods which often hit Jakarta and affected the
investment activities. Thursday's flooding in Jakarta have seriously
affected businesses, disturbed goods and logistics distribution and
caused at least 300 factories to stop operations.
"I have received a report that the industrial zone in Pulogadung, East
Jakarta, was flooded with flood waters reaching a range of 20 cm to 100
cm. The floods caused 300 factories to completely stop operations,"
Deputy Chairman of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
(Kadin) for Jakarta Office, Sarman Simanjorang, said.
The floods hit almost all parts of Jakarta, creating serious traffic
jams, delaying important meetings, stopping the operations of commuter
trains, closing busways, killing at least 11 residents and affecting
248,846 others.
Floods have repeatedly hit Jakarta during the rainy season but the
regional government could not yet solve the problems. According to
Sofjan, floods have been overcome and should no longer pose serious
constraints as they had frequently taken place since a long time ago.
"It has always caused impacts that can be measured, namely crippling the
people's and economic activities," Sofjan said.
The Apindo chairman said that each time Jakarta is hit by floods; all
become awaken and aware again of the importance of continuing flood
handling efforts and giving it a priority.
"Flood in Jakarta deals a big blow to the economy and the country
because Jakarta is the center of the government administration and the
hub of the country's economy," he said.
As
an example, Thursday's floods could cause industries to suffer a loss
of about Rp1.4 million per day as they have caused at least 300
factories to stop operations, because the factories could not be
operated for damage or because workers could not go to workplaces.
"About 300 factories stopped production but we have not yet received
confirmation on a plan to relocate them. Floods also cut off our
communications with them," Sarman Simanjorang said meanwhile.
He said that the losses suffered as a result of the stoppage of the
factories' operations were estimated at Rp1.5 billion per day. The
government should therefore overcome the problem soon, no matter whether
or not businesses are going to relocate their factories.
According
to the Kadin official, businesses are concerned as floods disturbed
production activities and the distribution of goods produced by their
factories.
"We will certainly suffer from losses as a result of the flooding,
particularly with regard to transportation. It could be imagined the
huge losses we are going to suffer due to troubled logistics flows,"
Sarman Simanjorang said.
He said that hampered flows of logistics would cause considerable
losses. However, he could not yet provide figure on the losses business
would suffer.
Sarman said his side had not yet received any report on losses but he
could imagine how floods hamper logistics distribution and cause losses.
"Frankly speaking, the floods disturb the economic performance and
activities," he said.
In addition, floods also delayed financial and business transactions to
serve business world. Businesses therefore, hoped the central and
regional governments to coordinate in coping with the flood problems in
the capital city, he said.
Thursday's floods should serve as a timely reminder for the government to take action soon.
According to former vice president Yusuf Kalla, now is the correct time
for the government to improve Jakarta's infrastructure to prevent the
impacts of repeated floods.
"I
share the President's opinion that now is the time for the government
to take steps and improve infrastructures. Improvement should be made in
the rainy season now. We should not await until the floods have gone as
doing so would cause us to forget it again," Kalla said after a
meeting with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Friday.
Kalla
said that the President would take a step soon to assure that efforts
to overcome floods would be made so that the same floods would not be
repeated in the future.
"As a consequence, of course, we need a big fund. So far, we set aside a
big subsidy but it is enjoyed by those who are trapped in traffic jams.
So, why not trying to use the funds for developing infrastructure, not
in traffic jams," Kalla said referring to the big subsidy for premium
gasoline which is mostly enjoyed by rich people who owned cars. The
government set a fuel subsidy of Rp193.8 trillion this year.
He said that fuel subsidy could be reduced and used for infrastructure improvement.
"This is actually a problem of choice, whether we are going to improve
infrastructure soon or going to spend subsidies on traffic jams. So,
which are you going to take?" Kalla asked. ***3***
(T.A014/S012)
(T.A014/A/KR-BSR/S012) 18-01-2013 19:30 |
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