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Batam authority merger to accelerate move: Economy chief

Marchio Irfan Gorbiano (The Jakarta Post)

Jakarta

Fri, December 14, 2018 Published on Dec. 14, 2018 Published on 2018-12-14T16:34:46+07:00

Batam authority merger to accelerate move: Economy chief

Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution (JP/Anton Hermansyah)

C

oordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution has said the government’s move to merge the leadership of the Batam Industrial Development Authority (BP Batam) with the Batam city administration was done to de-bottleneck business licensing issuance in the area.

“[The merge] was done in order to avoid dualism of leadership [in Batam],” said Darmin in Jakarta on Friday, adding that the move was taken after President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo as well as Vice President Jusuf Kalla heard businesspeople’s complaints about the authority overlapping in Indonesia’s free trade zone (FTZ).

Jokowi decided to merge the two bodies on Wednesday after holding a cabinet meeting at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta, which effectively would make the mayor of Batam the ex-officio BP Batam head.

Darmin explained that the decision to give the Batam mayor the ex-officio position in BP Batam was taken to give the Batam administration a greater role to develop the economy of its territory in the spirit of regional autonomy.

He also said the government was preparing a regulation that would act as a legal basis for the Batam mayor’s position as BP Batam head, estimating that the regulation would be issued early next year. (bbn)