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tate-owned port operator PT Pelabuhan Indonesia (Pelindo III) plans to shift domestic container traffic from the East Java hub of Tanjung Perak Port to the nearby Teluk Lamong Multipurpose Terminal in the first quarter of next year in a bid to reduce lengthy dwell time at the country'€™s second-largest nautical gateway.

Pelindo III investment supervisor Prasetyo said that the dwell time at Perak averaged 33 hours this year, causing inefficiency at the port as well as increasing logistics costs.

'€œPerak can no longer accommodate domestic container traffic, which is increasing by around 7 percent a year, because we do not have the space for further development,'€ Prasetyo told The Jakarta Post in Jakarta on Tuesday, adding that during peak seasonal periods that figure could reach 60 hours, causing queues of ships waiting to enter the port.

'€œWe are aiming to cut the current dwell time to 10 hours when we start operating at Teluk Lamong in April, and so reduce congestion at Perak and improve our services.'€

According to the firm'€™s recent data, more than 1.5 million twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) containers from 32 points across the archipelago entered Perak since January 2013. The number of containers is expected to exceed 2 million TEUs by the end of the year. The traffic is far higher than the port'€™s capacity, which can handle 1.2 million TEU containers at its domestic terminal.

Prasetyo said the firm had speeded up the construction of the Rp 3.5 trillion (US$294 million) Teluk Lamong project earlier this year and it was now 80 percent complete.

Some sections of the project, including the international yard, domestic yard and connecting bridge, were finished by the third quarter of this year.

Pelindo III is currently working on Teluk Lamong'€™s causeway. The firm'€™s spokesman, Edi Priyanto, said they had set aside 250 hectares in Teluk Lamong for further expansion to anticipate surging demand in the future.