East Kalimantan to build 737-km border road network

The East Kalimantan provincial administration plans to build a 737-kilometer road network along the Indonesia-Malaysia border in a bid to make a kind of front areas.

“Construction of the 737-km road project is estimated to cost Rp 3.5 trillion,” East Kalimantan Governor Awang Faroek Ishak said in Samarinda as quoted by kompas.com.

The road network will be equipped with access roads to the borderlines with an additional fund of about Rp 1.5 trillion, the governor said.

He explained that the plan should have gained serious support from the central government, which has to make commitments to enhance development in remote areas, because development of the border areas constitutes the central government's authority.
     
If the central government and the regional administration do not have the same vision, there will be an allegation in relation to the regional government's intention to help improve welfare of people in remote areas but its lack of support in financing, he said.

Emphasis on the development along border areas in East Kalimantan has been underlined by the province in its 2013 Reviving East Kalimantan Program, the governor said.