The government is looking to appoint a private Japanese company in the next few days to team up with state-owned port operator Pelindo II to build the Patimban deep-sea port in West Java by the end of the year.
“We hope there’s going to be a decision in the next few days about who will be our partner from Japan so that we can seal two deals by the time we meet Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe [on Jan. 15],” Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi told reporters on Monday.
Patimban Port is among various national strategic projects that will ease logistics in the country.
The port will have a container capacity of 1.5 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) once it is partly completed by 2019 and then 7.5 million TEUs by 2027, which is half the capacity of Jakarta’s Tanjung Priok Port, the country’s busiest port.
The first deal Budi referred to is the one between his ministry and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which will act as the official party that provides financing on behalf of the Japanese government. Meanwhile, the second deal is the agreement with Pelindo II and the private Japanese company that will construct and operate the Patimban Port.
Prime Minister Abe is scheduled to meet with President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo on Jan. 15 during his visit to Indonesia. The visit is part of his trip to Australia and other Southeast Asian nations.
The government says Japanese diversified conglomerate Mitsubishi Group is among the prospective partners to handle Patimban Port.
“We expect that the detailed engineering design [DED] for the port can be completed in the third quarter of this year. The groundbreaking ceremony is slated for the fourth quarter,” Budi said.
The total investment value for the Patimban project is estimated at around Rp 40 trillion (US$3 billion). The Indonesian government is expected to control a 51 percent majority stake in the project, in which Pelindo II will own 10 percent with investment worth Rp 4 trillion.
Previously, the government said that as much as $1.7 billion in foreign loans was expected to be channeled into the project. The government also said it would provide an additional $595 million to finance it.
As the Japanese side will be involved in managing Patimban once it is completed, the government expects them to transfer their knowledge in port management to their Indonesian counterparts.
Although Indonesia hopes to become a major logistics hub in the Asia Pacific, it still lags behind its Southeast Asian neighbors in the World Bank’s 2016 Logistic Performance Index.
The region’s largest economy ranked 63rd, below some of its neighbors such as Singapore (5th), Malaysia (32nd) and Thailand (45th).
Meanwhile, Pelindo II president director Elvyn G. Masassya said Patimban Port would complement Tanjung Priok Port in the future.
In September last year, President Jokowi launched the new Kalibaru Port terminal to expand the nation’s largest trade hub in Jakarta, with high hopes that the new terminal could help Tanjung Priok Port cut down costs and make the country more competitive in trade.
The Rp 12 trillion terminal is expected to reduce congestion problems at the busy Tanjung Priok trade hub by increasing its import-export capacity by 1.5 million TEUs per year from the overloaded capacity of 7 million TEUs.
“So, Patimban Port will complement Tanjung Priok Port until 2019. Later, if the capacity of Tanjung Priok Port is already full, we will need help from Patimban Port,” Elvyn said.
Source: The Jakarta Post (LF)
Source: The Jakarta Post