Small islands offered to oil investors

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government would seem to be becoming more serious in its efforts to lease out at least some the country's small islands, which number in the thousands, with many uninhabited.

Muchrim Hakim, the head of the Committee for the Efficient and Optimal Use of Small Islands, said on Monday that the committee had offered Tinjil and Delih islands off the coast of Banten to investors from Iran, while a couple of islets in the Natuna Islands and off the coast of Central Sulawesi had been offered to investors from Oman.

"These islands are being offered because of their proximity to the markets for clean oil products, that is, China and Korea," Muchrim told the press after a meeting with Vice President Hamzah Haz.

He said demand for clean oil products in China, South Korea and other countries in the region reached 21 million barrels per day.

The islands were being offered to the Middle Eastern investors to store their products as an alternative to Singapore, which planned to ban the storage of polluting industries' products starting in 2005, he said.

Muchrim said Indonesia would provide tanks in the relevant islands where investors could store their products.

"We have the potential to make use of and offer around 3,800 small islands to foreign investors," he said.

He made the statement as Hamzah was planning to set off on a tour of a number of countries in the Middle East, including Sudan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The trip will last from Sept. 9 to Sept. 17. According to Muchrim, during the tour, Hamzah would publicize the availability of the small islands among potential investors.

A small island is defined as an island with a maximum area of 2,000 square kilometers, and with a population of less than 200,000.

Offering small islands to investors is actually not a new idea in this country of 17,000 islands of various sizes.

So far, the country's small islands have yet to be economically developed, with some of them having fallen into the hands of the country's richest businessmen.

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism had planned to entice foreign investors to the country's small islands to develop marine tourism.

The ministry had planned to copy the sort of marine tourism model that had been developed by the Maldives.

The fact that many of Indonesia's small islands, especially those in the areas bordering neighboring countries, remain uninhabited has caused worries among some in Jakarta that Indonesia might some day lose sovereignty over the islands.