The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Jakarta should improve its transportation system to maintain its significant role in the country's export activities and enhance its competitiveness in global trade, businesspeople say.
The capital plays a crucial role in service and trade activities, which are supported by the existence of Tanjung Priok Port in North Jakarta and Soekarno-Hatta Airport in Cengkareng, West Jakarta, said Jakarta Chamber of Commerce and Industry vice chairman Syafrizal.
""Jakarta has better infrastructure and facilities than other regions. While other regions develop their manufacturing industries, Jakarta is a hub for services and trades,"" he said in an interactive dialogue on Jakarta's role in the country's export activities Tuesday.
However, this means the city needs to seriously improve its transportation facilities, especially those at the Tanjung Priok Port, which has been the country's international trade hub since the era of Dutch occupation, he added.
The port, with a one-way narrow canal, has a limited capacity to accommodate large ships and the port roads are partly damaged, causing long truck queues that have to wait for hours to enter the storage area.
The Tanjung Priok port is currently ""overloaded"", Syafrizal said.
He said the situation had resulted in high transportation and distribution costs, making Indonesia less competitive compared to other countries in the global market.
""Transportation and distribution costs contribute around 18 percent to the price of manufacturing products and around 38 percent to the price of agricultural products here. In our neighboring countries, the costs only contribute between 8 and 12 percent to prices.""
Indonesian Textile Association (API) chairman Benny Soetrisno agreed that high transportation and distribution costs in the country had hampered efforts to boost national exports.
He said the high costs were a result of the queues as well as 76 legal and illegal levies.
""These levies burden us. It's too much,"" he said
According to the Trade Ministry's director-general for foreign trades, Diah Maulida, Jakarta contributes around 40 percent to the country's total non-oil-and-gas exports, which amounted to around US$80 billion in 2006.
In response to the remarks on the port's poor condition, the technical manager of PT Pelindo II, the state-owned company operating Tanjung Priok port, Mulyadi, told the audience Pelindo planned to develop the port.
He said development of the port would cover both sea and land areas.
He said Pelindo would widen the entrance-and-exit canal and deepen and widen the ship pool by moving the breakwater.
Pelindo would also improve roads at the port, he said.
""Development will begin next year ... to be completed by 2010."" (11)
