Java investment to be restricted

JAKARTA (JP): The government, in an effort to evenly distribute industrial investment in Indonesia and curb the conversion of productive agricultural land for non-farming ventures, will soon restrict further industrial development in Java to the island's industrial estates.

Rahadi Ramelan, deputy chief of the National Development Planning Board, said that if prospective investors intend to build industrial plants in Java, they must do so within industrial estates which, he said, currently still had vacant plots.

He said a government regulation providing a spatial masterplan, which was currently being finalized, is expected to encourage industrialists to invest in regions outside Java and persuade them to occupy the vacant land in many of Java's industrial estates.

The draft of the regulation has already been completed and has been submitted to the related ministries, he said as quoted by Antara.

The implementation of the ruling, he added, will be discussed in a coordinated meeting led by the state minister of national development planning.

The deputy chief of the resources development unit of the Agency for Technology Assessment and Application (BPPT), M.T. Zein, said it is essential to create new development centers in eastern Indonesia.

Currently, nine such centers exist, including Sanggau (for West Kalimantan), Seram (for Maluku), Manado-Bitung (for North Sulawesi), Bima (for West and East Nusa Tenggara) and Pare-pare (for Central Sulawesi).

Zein said that by the end of the second Long-term Development Plan period, which will end in 2019, eastern Indonesia is expected to have 54 growth centers.

The sectors which will play the biggest role in the eastern provinces will include fisheries, shipping, agribusiness, forestry, mining, tourism and services, Zein said.

Coordinating Minister for Industry and Trade Hartarto said earlier that the government was presently considering the possibility of issuing 80-year land permits, such as those issued on Batam Island in Riau.

Land permits for industry in other parts of Indonesia currently expire after 30 years.

Rahadi said that during the current sixth Five-Year Development Plan period, which began in April 1994, 54 percent of road and bridge construction work will take place in eastern Indonesia, 44 percent of the state budget for harbor facilities will be allocated for that region, while 33 percent of the development of irrigation systems and 53 percent of the country's new rice fields will be developed there.(pwn)

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