Govt license sought for Cilamaya port

Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Bandung | Fri, 04/30/2010 10:11 AM

The West Java provincial administration has called on the central government to speed up the issuance of the principal license for the development of Cilamaya port in Karawang.

The port, when completed, is expected to be able to ease Jakarta’s Tanjung Priok port’s cargo load by about 14 percent.

The head of the West Java Development Planning Agency, Denny Juanda, said the province had not yet received the written license from the central government. “What we have so far is just a verbal assurance and statements in media,” he said on Thursday.

He added the Cilamaya port would mean efficiency for businesses in term of expenses and timing of their product shipment. This in turn will improve their competitiveness, he said.

West Java industries and factories, according to Denny, constituted 6 million twenty-foot equivalent (TEU) a day or some 45 percent of Tanjung Priok’s cargo.

Stagnation at Tanjung Priok, he said, had caused financial losses to the industry due to delays of up to five days in shipping as ships had to queue before being able to leave the port.

He said the compensation the West Java provincial administration had to bear from the delay reached up to Rp 10 billion in 2005 and is predicted to increase to Rp 18.81 billion this year.

“We won’t take the entire industry from Tanjung Priok to Cimalaya. But at least it can serve as the main feeder for the port,” Denny said.

He added that state-run port operator company PT Pelindo II had expressed commitment to manage Cilamaya as a hub-port to reduce the long queue at Tanjung Priok.

A European community consortium, PT Eurocorr Indonesia, worked with Dutch DETEC NV to finish the feasibility study in 2008 and planned to develop Cilamaya as a European-standard port.

JICA (Japan for International Cooperation Agency), he added, had also been funding a master plan study on the development of Cilamaya conducted by the Transportation Ministry scheduled to be completed by July this year.

Meanwhile, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s West Java chapter asked that industries had access to an export-import port zone that was void of social problems and traffic congestion.

Chairman Agung Suryamal Sutisno said the port would be important to guarantee the security and speed of the exports to get to the buyers’ hands abroad in time.

He added that Tanjung Priok was no longer feasible as West Java’s main export-import gate as containers first had to travel Jakarta’s city toll roads that were plagued by traffic jams.

The Cilamaya feasibility study shows that it is on average a 15-hour turn-around to Tanjung Priok from Bandung. While to Cimalaya it is only a 10-hour turn-around.

The difference is considered Cilamaya’s competitive advantage.