JAKARTA: Trade Minister Rachmat Gobel says his Ministry will open offices in border areas to meet the needs of local residents and, at the same time, add value to the communities.
Rachmat said the offices aimed at shortening the distribution chain for goods and commodities and eventually reducing price disparities among islands in the archipelago.
“We want to manage the regions to improve local communities,” Rachmat told reporters following a meeting at the office of the Home Ministry to discuss the government’s development program in border areas.
Rachmat said his office had approached state-owned shipping firm PT Pelayaran Nasional Indonesia (Pelni) and the Transportation Ministry to work together to implement the program, and hoped that his ministry could benefit from the two institutions’ experience in managing transportation.
The establishment of the offices, he said, was part of the ministry’s program to manage Indonesia’s outermost areas under the Borderland Integrated Development Program (Gerbangdutas) of the National Agency on Border Management (BNPP). The agency is funded by the government to the tune of Rp 14 trillion (US$1.05 billion) annually.
Gerbangdutas, which is included in the Nawacita programs initiated by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, aims at accelerating development and management of Indonesia’s outermost regions. The program not only focuses on physical aspects, such as infrastructure construction, but also on nonphysical elements, such as human resources and trading development.
Regions that will be priorities in the program include southern Papua bordering Papua New Guinea, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) bordering Timor Leste, Natuna, 12 outer islands and North and West Kalimantan bordering Malaysia.
Rachmat went on to say that his ministry was currently calculating prioritized areas where the offices would be established as each office would require close supervision. “Border areas need close supervision to reduce smuggling,” he said.
Indonesians living in the outermost regions, especially those bordering other countries, usually get their staples from the neighboring countries, which leads to illegal imports, as Indonesian product prices are often higher due to long distribution chains. Recently, East Kalimantan Governor Awang Faroek ishak said the government’s attention to regions in border areas was minimal as reflected in the skyrocketing oil prices in border areas.
He called on the government to clearly define the border with Malaysia because at least 10 villages in the province had demanded to join the neighboring country.
Poor communications are another problem faced by outer regions as Indonesian telcom services fail to reach those areas.
Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara said on Tuesday that his office planned to build telcom facilities in 50 border regencies and cities worth Rp 3 trillion. The facilities will be in the form of fiber optic, undersea cables and terrestrial infrastructure.
“The projects must be completed by 2018 and connect all cities and regencies in the areas through the fiber optic backbone,” Rudiantara said.
He added that the scheme would be subsidized by the government using universal service obligation (USO) funds collected from telcom operator companies to expedite the process.
