Transportation Ministry Director General for Sea Transportation Antonius Tonny Budiono said the government and state-owned port firms, Pelindo I, II, III and IV, were discussing the so-called Indonesia Integrated Chain Port plan, which would consolidate the export of cargoes from various domestic ports nationwide, including Bitung Port in North Sulawesi and Sorong Port in West Papua, with the country’s busiest port.
Such consolidation is aimed at making the transshipment more efficient and “attractive” for both local and global shipping lines.
“The transshipment sector has long been dominated by Singapore. [But] If the commodities originate in our country, why can’t we handle them?” he said over the phone on Tuesday.
Tonny said the ministry would prepare technical and regulatory matters for the system, while also laying out the business plans with the State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Ministry.
The system, including IT management, is set to become effective in the second half of this year.
“It’s already settled. The only remaining concern is the business plans [of each Pelindo],” Tonny said, claiming that infrastructure-wise, Tanjung Priok was ready to play a bigger role as an international hub.
The ministry sparked controversy when it recently revised the national ports plan (RIPN) through Transportation Ministerial Decision No. KP 901/2016 and introduced Tanjung Priok as the country’s new international port hub in Indonesia.
Deep-sea Patimban Port in West Java, construction of which is being carried out jointly by an Indonesia-Japan consortium, is set to complement the future hub.
Tanjung Priok Port has long been Indonesia’s largest container port, handling more than half the country’s externally traded goods.
It received an annual 1.5 million total equivalent unit (TEU) capacity boost for imports and exports with the operation of the New Priok Container Terminal 1 ( NPCT1 ) last September, from the previous 7 million TEU capacity.
Its container traffic rose to 5.4 million TEUs last year from 5.2 million TEUs in 2015.
Of that figure, international traffic represented 3.8 million TEUs in 2016, up from 3.7 million TEUs in the previous year.
The Transportation Ministry has anticipated a 11.1 percent surge in freight traffic in the country’s ports to 929.8 million tons annually by 2020, from 836.5 million tons annually in 2015. The figure is expected to jump to 1.1 billion tons each year by 2030.
Rest at http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/01/25/indonesia-eyeing-slice-of-singapores-market.html
