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tate-owned shipping firm PT Pelayaran Nasional Indonesia (Pelni) is aiming to take over the management of the passenger terminal at Tanjung Priok Port from state port operator Pelindo II.

The move by the company was driven, in part, to lure passengers back to the plunging passenger shipping business.

Pelni corporate secretary Solichah said that the firm aimed to begin operating the terminal at the country'€™s busiest port this year.

'€œWe submitted the request to Pelindo II last week and now we are planning the business scheme,'€ Solichah told The Jakarta Post in a telephone interview.

Passenger-growth targets and the amount of investment required to take over the passenger terminal are still being calculated, she added.

Amid the emergence of budget airlines, Pelni has suffered from a decline in passengers.

The company began in 2011 to modify passenger ships so they could carry more cargo containers, boost revenue and offset the losses from the passenger shipping business.

'€œWe aim to boost the number of passengers,'€ Solichah said.

By operating the passenger terminal, Pelni hopes to improve the quality of service at the passenger terminal, which was one of the issues discouraging passengers from travelling by sea.

'€œPeople are now choosing other modes of transportation because many consider ships to be unsafe, this is down to the substandard quality of service at the terminals,'€ Solichah said.

She added that Pelni also wanted to operate other passenger terminals currently run by Pelindo II.

Pelni'€™s revenue is 70 percent derived from passenger ferries, while the remaining 30 percent is from cargo shipment.

But the company is trying to increase its cargo business contribution to 50 percent this year, according to Pelni'€™s president director Syahril Japarin.

The shipping firm aimed to increase its revenue to Rp 3.2 trillion (US$281.75 million) this year from Rp 2.4 trillion in 2013, Syahril said.

To realize the plan, Pelni recently signed an agreement to cooperate with three state-owned enterprises to transport commodities, namely oil and gas giant PT Pertamina, steel producer PT Krakatau Steel and PT Kharisma Pemasaran Bersama Nusantara.

Pelni booked a Rp 630 billion loss last year, as increasing fuel prices and the depreciation of rupiah against the US dollar squeezed its revenues.

But the company is upbeat of Rp 50 billion profit this year as the business focus has shifted to cargo shipments.

The Transportation Ministry supported Pelni'€™s plan to operate the passenger terminal, saying that the ministry had long encouraged the company to do so.

'€œPelindo has its concentration divided between serving containers and passengers,'€ the Transportation Ministry'€™s spokesperson Bambang S. Ervan said.

'€œMost passenger terminals are just container terminals that were modified, which failed passengers,'€ he said, adding that the ministry expected Pelni to improve the service at Tanjung Priok passenger terminal.