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tate run port firm Pelindo II, also known as the Indonesian Port Corporation (IPC), has begun the tender process for the operation of the second and third terminals at North Jakarta’s Kalibaru Port, which is touted to be the largest port in the country.

IPC president director Richard Joost Lino said as many as 18 major international shipping lines such as Hutchison, Dubai Port World, APM Terminals and ISTS had shown interest in running the terminals and are currently preparing tender documents.

“We have asked them to complete the tender documents by April 3 at the latest and we hope to sign a deal with two of the companies in August. We expect to grab a bigger global market by working with them,” Lino said on the sidelines of the Sea Transportation National Seminar in Jakarta on Thursday.

The second and third terminals, with a total capacity of 3 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs), are expected to commence operations in 2016.

“We have to accelerate construction and operations of the terminals because container traffic continues to increase in Tanjung Priok. With strong economic growth that will boost trade, our port infrastructure needs to be well prepared,” he said, referring to the existing port, also in North Jakarta.

Data from the company showed that traffic in Indonesia’s busiest port, Tanjung Priok, reached 6.2 million TEUs by the end of last year, up from 5.6 million TEUs in 2011. In fact, the port was only designed to accommodate 5 million TEUs containers.

Previously, the firm announced that Japan’s Mitsui & Co., Ltd. won the tender to run Kalibaru’s first container terminal, which has a capacity of 1.5 million TEUs.

Apart from Mitsui Lines, the Japanese would bring in major shipping lines to the new port such as NYK, Evergreen, Hanjin and APL, to help strengthen the port in the Asian market. Lino said that whichever company won the tender, it should be able to not only provide a great market to Indonesia but also larger ships that each can carry 8,000 TEUs containers.All the drafts will be 16-meter deep so that very big ships can dock at the terminal. With much larger ships, we can help reduce logistics costs as they can carry more goods,” he went on.

By pocketing a presidential decree that was issued in April 2012, IPC is the sole developer of Kalibaru Port, which is projected to have a total capacity of 13 million TEUs.

The Rp 24 trillion (US$2.5 billion) port is set to be constructed in three phases.

Meanwhile, Pelindo III commercial director Husein Latief said the firm was eyeing a collaboration with international players for its current project, Teluk Lamong multipurpose terminal, in East Java near Tanjung Perak and its next project, the Java Integrated Industrial and Port Estate in Gresik.

“We want to provide better service, so working with international players is indeed a possibility,” Husein said.

Currently, the firm is working with Dubai Port World in the operations of Surabaya Container Terminal in Tanjung Perak.

The Rp 3.4 trillion Teluk Lamong project is slated to begin operating in April 2014 while the Java Integrated Industrial and Port Estate is undergoing land acquisition.