Govt assigns team to check estate permits

JAKARTA (JP): The government has set up a team of officials to assess land-use permits issued to industrial estate developers and revoke any that had not been utilized over a number of years.

State Minister of Agrarian Affairs Soni Harsono said yesterday the team would consist of officials from his office, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Investment Coordinating Board and local administrations.

Soni, who is also chairman of the National Land Agency, said the government considered the development of industrial estates too slow compared to the high number of land-use permits it had issued to developers in the last couple of years.

He said that although Indonesia had allocated 53,000 hectares of land to 169 industrial estate developers by the end of 1996, only 48 developers had performed and only 6,369 hectares, or 12 percent, of the land had been appropriated.

"The team will assess how serious the industrial estate developers are. Maybe they have problems with land speculators who make land prices very high, but maybe it is also their own fault," he said.

Soni said if the developers had land-use permits but had only appropriated a small area of land, or nothing at all, the government would revoke the permits.

"We will assess each case one at a time," he said after a gathering with members of the Association of Industrial Estate Companies.

He said almost all land-use permits for industrial estates had expired.

Despite the slow development of industrial estates, Soni said a large number of companies had requested land-use permits to build industrial facilities outside the estates.

"Ever since the 1993 deregulations, the government has issued 2018 land-use permits to such companies for 55,000 hectares of land," he said.

Soni said about 50 percent of these companies were located in West Java, particularly in Greater Jakarta and Karawang.

He acknowledged that many companies were reluctant to build their industrial facilities in industrial estates because of the high price of plots there.

"Apart from that, industrial estate developers are often unable to serve their customers and many have poor telephone, water and electricity facilities," he said.

In Karawang and Greater Jakarta -- which consists of Bogor, Tangerang and Bekasi -- there are 60 industrial estates covering a total of 22,000 hectares of land.

Soni said the government would not issue any more land-use permits to companies that want to build industrial facilities outside industrial estates if there was an estate in the area.

"Companies can go in one of the existing estates," he said.

He said the government would reject requests for industrial estate development permits for Tangerang because there were enough estates there.

He said the government would only extend the land-use permits of industrial estates which had appropriated at least 25 percent of the total area allocated to them as stipulated by their land-use permits.

Industrial estates which, until Oct. 23, 1996, had appropriated more than 20 percent of their allocated land, could continue building their estates, he said. (pwn)