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tate-owned port operator Pelindo II plans to develop three new seaports and begin the digital transformation of its seaports this year to support the government’s ambition to restore Indonesia’s role as a maritime power.

Pelindo II has allocated Rp 5.4 trillion (US$406 million) in capital expenditure (capex) this year, of which 40 percent will be used to upgrade its ports, to support its massive expansion, Pelindo II president director Elvyn G. Masassya said during a recent visit to The Jakarta Post.

The capex will be mainly derived from its internal cash flow, which still has $600 million left from issuance of global bonds totaling $1.6 billion in April 2015.

The remaining 60 percent will be spent on construction of three ports, listed as the national strategic projects, and support the ongoing development of Kalibaru Port in Jakarta with an estimated investment worth between that Rp 14 trillion and Rp 16 trillion.

It will build this year Terminal 2 and Terminal 3 at the Kalibaru Port with a combined capacity of 3 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of cargoes annually, adding to 1.5 million TEUs capacity in Terminal 1 that came into commercial operation in last September. The newest terminals are slated for completion in 2019.

Another two ports to be constructed this year are Kijing Port in West Kalimantan and Seget Port in West Papua with investment totaling Rp 5.1 trillion and Rp 2.5 trillion, respectively.

Apart from the various port expansion plans, Pelindo II also expects to build Rp 3.4 trillion worth waterways linking Cikarang, Bekasi and Java Sea (CBL) that will connect Tanjung Priok Port with the hinterland area of Bekasi.

Meanwhile, the digital transformation will take place in five seaports out of 12 seaports it currently operates, namelyTanjung Priok Port in Jakarta, Panjang Port in Lampung, Boom Baru Port in Palembang, South Sumatra, Teluk Bayur Port in Padang, West Sumatra and Pontianak Port in Pontianak, West Kalimantan.

“In the long run, our ports will be fully digitized. […] By then, all physical documents will be replaced by electronic ones and all transactions must be carried out by banks,” Elvyn said.

To ease the flow of goods, the firm plans to install state-of-the-art technology at those ports, such as auto-gates with the optical character recognition feature. It will aso operate a container freight station to manage imported goods more efficiently at Tanjung Priok Port, the country’s gateway for international trade, in the second quarter of this year.

Ports run by the firm will also benefit from a real-time shipping administration system called Inaportnet, initiated by the Transportation Ministry since last June in a number of ports under Pelindo I, II, III and IV.

Inaportnet is supported by an integrated billing system provided by six domestic lenders, including state-owned lender Bank Mandiri and private lender Bank CIMB Niaga and featuring e-billing and e-payment, among other things.

Inaportnet has also been integrated into the country’s export-import licensing portal Indonesian National Single Window (INSW), where traders can use a single identity for export and import permit application.

“We want to invest in further developing the soft skills and software in our ports,” Pelindo II engineering and risk management director Dani Rusli Utama said.

With all these efforts, Pelindo II is upbeat about its contribution to reduce the domestic dwell time to 2.5 days on average this year, from 2.7 days last year. As of January, the dwell time in four state-owned port operatorsstill averaged 3.14 days.

In the first quarter of this year, Pelindo II booked Rp 2.9 trillion in revenue, up 50.26 percent from Rp 1.93 trillion in the last quarter of last year. It targets to record a 15 percent year-on-year increase in net profit to Rp 1.73 trillion by year’s end.