BATAM PORT PLANS TALKED UP BY CO-ORDINATING MINISTER FOR MARITIME AFFAITRS

The government of Indonesia is revisiting the idea of developing a port facility on the island of Batam. This location is around 30km south of Singapore, close to international shipping routes, and has been under consideration for the past 30 years without any major development taking place.

However, following a recent visit to the site, in the Batam Free Trade Zone and Freeport in Tanjungpinggir, in Sekupang sub-district, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Co-ordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment noted that the available water depth was suitable for developing a port and that the idea is to link it to Kuala Tanjung port in northern Sumatra.

The current development area covers 94ha but there is scope to expand it, to 330ha, through reclamation. This would make the proposed port bigger than Indonesia’s largest existing facility, Tanjung Priok.

Not surprisingly, even at this early-stage doubts are being expressed over the scheme. Indonesia’s National Maritime Institute (NMI) has raised concerns on both “technical and economic” grounds. “I estimate the length of the Tanjung Pinggir coastline to be 1.5km at best,” says Siswanto Rusdi, Director, NMI. “With such a small area, how much throughput can be handled?,” he asks.