Jakarta's Tanjung Priok container ports congested
Jakarta's Tanjung Priok container ports congested
JAKARTA (JP): Congestion has caused delays in export
deliveries and prevented ships from berthing at the Tanjung Priok
port over the last several days.
ANteve reported yesterday that scores of local businessmen are
"anxious" not only because they have had to pay fines for the
delays but because they may also lose their export orders.
Several ships were floating idly at the port as they waited
for their turns to load or unload goods to or from the port's
container terminals.
Republika quoted a port official yesterday as saying that the
port's two-container terminal could no longer cope with the
increasing flow of goods.
The number of containers coming in and out of Jakarta's
container port this year is expected to reach 1.4 million Twenty
Equivalent Units (TEUs), while they have a combined capacity to
accommodate only 1.2 million TEUs.
The data also show that the two terminals are the gates for
around 65 percent of Indonesia's total exports and imports.
U.S.-based investment bank Merrill Lynch said that the
country's exports this year will likely reach US$43.5 billion and
its imports $36.5 billion.
PT Pelabuhan Indonesia (Pelindo) II, the state-owned company
assigned to manage the Tanjung Priok port, announced last year
that, together with the Humpuss Group, it would set up a new
container terminal capable of accommodating around 1.2 million
containers of 20 feet with an investment of $495 million in North
Jakarta.
The project, which requires an appropriation of 90 hectares of
land currently inhabited by almost 40,000 people, should be
realized by early next year.
Because no agreement on compensation has been reached, the
land appropriation process is still not complete and no
construction has been started.
In addition to obsolete container terminals, analysts have
blamed Jakarta's complicated bureaucratic procedures in document
clearing at the docks.
Analysts have also cited complicated government trucking
regulations as having contributed to port congestion. (hdj)