RI to relax regulations on tourism
JAKARTA (JP): The government will issue next week a new regulation allowing foreign tourists to visit the country by driving their own vehicles through sea and land borders, said Coordinating Minister for Production and Distribution Hartarto.
He told reporters after meeting with President Soeharto at the Merdeka Palace here yesterday that the regulation would be jointly signed on June 5 by Minister of Finance Mar'ie Muhammad, Minister of Justice Oetojo Oesman, Minister of Industry and Trade Tunky Ariwibowo, Minister of Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto and Police Chief Lt. Gen. Dibyo Widodo.
"Foreign visitors will find easier rules on the use of their own vehicles or tourist buses in entering Indonesia," he said, adding that motorcycles and caravans, however, would still be prohibited for use by foreign visitors to enter Indonesia.
The planned regulation is mainly focused on visitors from neighboring members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which groups Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Hartarto said that Indonesia at present does not ban visitors from entering the country by using their own vehicles, but the current procedures are so strict that the gateways are practically closed.
"The new regulation will ease the existing procedures," he said.
He said that foreign tourists using their own vehicles are one of the major potential sources for the country's tourist industry, which is being promoted to become a major foreign exchange earner by 2003.
The country, gaining some US$5.9 billion in revenues from 4.32 million foreign visitors last year, expects to see at least 11 million visitors spending $15 billion in 2005.
"The country's infrastructures, including telecommunications and transportation -- especially in Sumatra and Java -- are already appropriate for convenient travel," Hartarto said.
The Indonesian seaports that are being prepared for the new regulation are Malahayati and Lhokseumawe in Aceh, Dumai and Selat Kijang in Riau and Belawan in North Sumatra.
As follow-ups to the new regulation, Hartarto said that services in immigration, customs and excise, quarantine and ferry at the seaports would be improved to ease the flow of the visitors.
Hartarto also said yesterday that President Soeharto and Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong will inaugurate on June 18 the Bintan Beach International Resort, a tourism resort on the northern part of Bintan, an offshore island in Riau province.
Based on an accord signed by Indonesia and Singapore in August 1990, Bintan has been developed as a joint tourism area, which includes a luxurious golf and beach resort,
The tourist area in Bintan is being developed on an approximately 23,000-hectare plot, along a 70-kilometer white beach. Bintan is projected to accommodate up to one million visitors annually in the year 2000.
In the first phase of development, the designated area has been divided into 34 plots, whose sizes range between 30 hectares and 425 hectares. The island currently has four such facilities in operation.
Soeharto and Goh will inaugurate the Bintan Lagoon Golf and Beach Resort at the Sedona Hotel.
Total commitments for the development of the tourist area in Bintan will reach S$195 million (US$139.3 million), out of which S$140 million has been invested in the existing projects.
Meanwhile, total commitments for five resort and hotel projects are estimated at S$576 million, of which S$380 million has been invested to develop the existing resorts. Salim Group of Indonesia and Kuok Group of Singapore are among the investors in the island.
Hartarto said that Bintan, which is included in the Indonesia- Malaysia-Singapore growth triangle, is also being developed as an industrial zone.
Apart from the tourist facility development, Bintan will see the construction of an industrial park in Lobam, which will accommodate nine garment manufacturers, water resources, a dockyard and an oil distribution center, he said. (icn)