Indonesia in port drive

Indonesia smarting from the lack of adequate port facilities to support its burgeoning economic growth is to embark on a possible port building drive. News that Jakarta is considering building a new port in Kalibaru comes on the back of yet another port in Sabang in Aceh built with assistance from Irish partners. In news reports carried by major Indonesian newspapers Pelindo II, the port authority overseeing port development in the country, Kalibaru port will begin construction in September and be funded by a $1.3billion loan from Bank Mandiri. There were no details of the interest rate to be charged, repayment schedule or of measures the bank would adopt in the case of default. Once the Kalibaru port is developed and becomes fully operational it will in manner of saying ease the overload of bottlenecks gripping Indonesias main port of Tanjung Priok and therein save shippers of all the costs that ordinarily comes with an inefficient and cumbersome intermodal logistics chain. From the looks of it, Indonesia unlike ambitious Vietnam is serious about how to calibrate the even spread of its port development projects across its vast archipelago. It is sussing out foreign investors and already a Chinese company named Wuxi Huadong Heavy Machinery lured by big profits is hoping to cash in. Foreign participation in Indonesias ports is not new. Hutchison Port Holdings already has a stake in the Jakarta International Container Terminals (JICT) and has been invited to participate in the Kalibaru project. Such a proposal would hardly surprise given the scale of the project and the huge expenses involved in managing and operating Kalibaru. But as matters go, there is still no word yet if Gwadar kind of port concessions may be given to operators or if Kalibaru may adopt the Malaysian transhipment port of Tanjung Pelepas of seeking shipping lines to operate and manage it? Or of what kind of specialised port equipment or internet connectivity will feature in the port, etc?

Yet there is no denying the potential underpinning Kalibaru. According to Pelindo II Managing Director Richard J. Lino profits from the port are slated to cross over the 30% mark just in 2011 alone! Perhaps the most striking forecast is the ability of the new port to raise its capacity and thereby complement Tanjung Priok amid the latters fast shrinking capacity to cope with ever increasing cargo throughput. It is believed Tanjung Priok will wind up taking some 7 million teus by 2013; a figure far exceeding its present capacity to cope. In reflecting the capital intensive nature of the development Indonesia is not concealing how it wants the project financed. That Jakarta is planning a tender exercise should not surprise anyone for nothing more than the mere fact that national budgetary considerations are mainly about reducing poverty and improving road and rail transport among other things. But the tender process as how Marine News Asia learns from Indonesian Transport Ministry officials is still in motion. The development of Kalibaru is part of the Indonesian governments grand plans to convert the entire northern belt of Jakarta into port holdings. Marine News Asia understands plans are also afoot to develop Cilamaya and Marunda in northern Indonesia in the mould of Kalibaru. ________________________________________________________ _______________________

- right now in process of tender, then still to find a winner, badan pusan pelabuhan, cilamaya close to tanjung priok, govt has declared north Jakarta as port areas, before marunda

As known, the Kalibaru Port project is in tender process in the Ministry of Transportation. As in Transportation Minister Letter Number 4L 106/2/14 Phb-2011 dated 13 July 2011, The Transportation Ministry as the initiator of the Kalibaru Terminal expansion stated to giving privileges to do offering towards the best offering based on evaluation result in an auction process to Pelindo II as the compensation. Based on its plan, the port with 1,200 meters pier will be able to accommodate 1.9 million TEus containers for. In the future, the terminal that is built on 75 hectares reclamation land will have 2,500 meters long with 150 hectares of back-up area.

Chinese company considering to invest in Kali Baru port project

Chinese company HDHM) said it was considering to invest in the Kali Baru port development project in Jakarta, Indonesia, in view of the good prospects of port business in Southeast Asia.
Wuxi, China (ANTARA News) -

The conmpany`s president director, Jeremy Weng, made the statement here on Tuesday at a meeting with Pelindo II delegations and HDHM officials in connection with the planned shipment of three cranes bought from the company by Pelindo for ports in Indonesia. "We are interested in doing business in Indonesia but we still have yet to discuss it internally first. Of course we need a lot of information in connection with it especially regarding the total investment to be needed," he said. Crane industries in China are seeking to expand outside China following its success in controlling local market. They have even targeted Asia especially Southeast Asia including Indonesia. Chinese companies recently won a bid for the procurement of 45 new cranes of various types from Pelindo II in 2010 worth Rp796 billion. The transport ministry has stated that tender for the development of Kalibaru Utara terminal at Tanjung Priok port in Jakarta would continue nd has pushed for immediate implementation of the tender so that the project could be finished in the middle of 2013 when it is predicted the port of Tanjung Priok would no longer be capable of meeting container growth. In 2014 the volume of containers is predicted to reach 6.1 million TEUs while the capacity of Tanjung Priok is only 6.2 million TEUs. The Pelindo II delegations were in China to assure the shipment of the 45 cranes that it had bought from three Chinese companies namely Qingdao Heavy-Duty Machinery in Qindao, Nanjing Port Machinery plant in Nanjing and Wuxi Huadong Heavy Machinery Co.Ltd. in Wuxi. (*)