Private sectors helping out transmigration

Private sectors helping out transmigration

JAKARTA (JP): Several hundred private companies have invested
about Rp 9.7 trillion (US$4.4 billion) over the past several
years to convert 3.25 million hectares of idle land into
productive fields for transmigrants, a cabinet minister said.

Minister of Transmigration Siswono Yudohusodo said that more
companies are interested in contributing to the government's
effort to redress resettlement problems.

The transmigration program aims at relocating poor people,
mostly farmers, from densely populated islands such as Java,
Bali, Madura and Lombok to sparsely inhabited islands.

Siswono made the remarks on Wednesday after he handed over
government permits to a group of businessmen who want to invest
in transmigration projects.

The minister pointed out that so far, 449 companies in
Jakarta, and other regions, have registered in the ministry's
grand plan to turn transmigration sites into independent,
profitable, economic centers.

Over 140 of the companies have started operation, benefiting
approximately 1.5 million families of resettlers in various
areas, he said.

"The government needs your cooperation in improving the
efficiency and productivity of the agriculture sector," Siswono
said. "This efficiency is needed to boost our agriculture's
quality, so that we'll be better able to face the approaching
market liberalization."

"In order to improve the welfare of our resettlers, who have
only small plots of land, we need to help them maximize their
farming products," he said.

Siswono said that if every farmer has between two to four
hectares of land, which are tilled with sophisticated farming
techniques and modern agribusiness management, the sector's
productivity would increase significantly.

"One of various ways to get land is through transmigration
programs," he said, adding that this is where the business owners
can help.

"Your philosophy should be this: seeking profits while
promoting the welfare of the resettlers in cooperation with the
ministry," he said.

People who leave the overly-crowded Java, Bali, Madura and
Lombok regions and become non-farming settlers in the less-
densely populated eastern parts of Indonesia are provided with
2.5 hectares of land. Farming resettlers are usually given two
hectare of land.

The population in Java is growing by 2.5 million annually, yet
the government is only managing to resettle 250,000 people every
year. (swe)