T

he government has set up a special team to help reduce the high dwelling time and yard occupancy ratio in the country'€™s main seaport, Tanjung Priok Port in North Jakarta, due to the increase in logistics costs.

Transportation Ministry spokesman Bambang S. Ervan said the team consisted of representatives from the ministry'€™s port authority, the Tanjung Priok branch of the Finance Ministry'€™s Customs and Excise Office, the harbor master, quarantine office, businesspeople and state-owned port operator Pelindo II, also known as the Indonesia Port Corporation (IPC).

'€œThe team is led by the port authority and we are committed to meeting, discussing and reporting on the progress we achieve and the problems that remain every single day, so that we will see an improvement in the flow of goods at the port,'€ Bambang told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

By the end of June 2013, dwelling time at the port had reached 8.7 days and its yard occupancy ratio was 106 percent, creating inefficiency and congestion that resulted in high logistics costs.

The government aims to lower the dwelling time to three days and the yard occupancy ratio to 65 percent in the future.

The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) said on Thursday that worsening traffic congestion at the port had seriously hurt business. They called on Pelindo II as the port operator to immediately solve the problem.

In the first step, the team will collect real data on the number of overstaying containers that have received a clearance letter (SPPB) from the Customs and Excise Office, the importers or companies that own the goods and their latest documentation.

'€œWe have also decided to pick four locations in Cikarang Dry Port [West Java] and Marunda Logistics Park [North Jakarta] to store some containers from Tanjung Priok because Priok is suffering congestion; there is no more room there,'€ he went on.

Separately, Tanjung Priok Customs and Excise Office head Wijayanta said the institution was committed to helping reduce the port'€™s inefficiency.

Wijayanta said they would extend their working hours from the previous 4 p.m. finish to midnight, starting on Monday.

'€œWe also want importers to collaborate with us by submitting their documents earlier in the morning so that we can work faster and more efficiently,'€ he said. The IPC, Priok'€™s operator, has been mulling short-term strategies to cope with the congestion, by investing US$250 million by the end of last year to buy new container-loading cranes, such as quay container cranes and luffing container cranes.