Maritime Transport in Indonesia

Hello fellas!! In this section, I would like to share a little bit serious things. Lately, I read lots of transportation journal intensively. I love transportation, because my major in master degree is about transportation. 

I'd like to share one part of transport things in Indonesia. for introduction, I want to  explain Indonesia in general. As a maritim country, Indonesia needs port for distributing goods to all around Indonesia. Distributing goods is carried out for answering the demand. Indonesia has lots of resident more or less 250 millions people. Indonesia also a big country which has range about 2.001.648,97 km2 which consist of 1.904.569 km² land area and 3.544.743,9 km² km² sea area, in other word, comparison between sea and land is about 70:30. Therefore, port can not be separated as an important thing in Indonesia.

source :google.com

Nowadays, Indonesia have got a problem about population density. Population density problem in Indonesia is directly proportional to government budget, government budget influence infrasturcture development, infrastructure development influences travel cost, and travel cost influences goods price. In several regions in Indonesia, they have variety of goods price. Example, in Puncak Jaya Papua, the price of Gasoline Rp 100.000/liter but in Jakarta you just pay Rp 7.400/liter or in Wamena Papua, the price of cement Rp 400.000/zak but in Jakarta you just pay Rp 80.000/zak.

Population density in Indonesia (Source : world bank (2013))

Mountains inside the picture describe population density in Indonesia. Mostly, Indonesian live in Java island, so ecomonic development and growth just centralize in Java island also. How about Sumatera, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Papua and the other islands? As you can see, the comparison among Java island and the other islands is extreamly high. 

How about goods price? For more deeply information you can see the above picture. In the picture, you will see average shipping cost from Jakarta (Tanjung Priok port) to Singapore, Belawan, Surabaya, and Sorong port. The best price is from Jakarta (Tanjung Priok port) to Singapore port. but from the picture also you will see the highest price is from Jakarta (Tanjung Priok port) to Sorong port. There is something weird in this picture, the price from Jakarta (Tanjung Priok port) to Surabaya is higher than to Singapore port, eventhought the distance is shorter than Jakarta (Tanjung Priok port) to Singapore port, and the extreamly contrast price from Jakarta (Tanjung Priok port) to Sorong port is weird also. Eventhought, the distance from Jakarta (Tanjung Priok port) to Sorong port is just about twice Jakarta (Tanjung Priok port) to Singapore port. So why?

The answer is the efectiveness of vessel and container. From Jakarta (Tanjung Priok port) to Singapore port, Vessel is full (ex: 1000 TEU's) and comes back to Jakarta (Tanjung Priok port) full also (ex: 1000 TEU's). In contrast, from Jakarta (Tanjung Priok port) to Surabaya/Sorong  port, may be Vessel is full (ex: 1000 TEU's), but when it comes back to Jakarta (Tanjung Priok port) isn't full (ex: 500 TEU's) or even empty. So the authority charges more and this condition affects the goods price.

For trying to figure it out, The goverment makes "Tol Laut" or Pendulum Service. The concept of this policy is like making hub and spoke port concept. So in Indonesia Pendulum Service concept, there will be 24 hub ports, and 36 spoke ports, and 7 small spoke ports. So, the spoke ports will deliver comodity to hub for collecting comodity. So, the goverment expects the shipping from and to hub port will be increased, so then the price of goods will be decreased.

In my opinion, this concept will not be running well. Why?

1. The fundamental things wansn't thinking. The ports is just tool for delivering goods. Demand for using the port is based on demand and supply. Demand will be wreaking the goods inside, That's why we're calling the ship and countainer from outside. But for supply, we should deliver the goods from inside to outside. In supply management, we need industries to serve goods for delivering to outside. In several cities and islands (ex: Papua), they are not industrial cities, so they can't serve many containers. What goverment needs to do is increasing the investment for making industry in developing region/area, so the cointaners can be delivered to outside.

2. The infrastructure hasn't built, so the access to port can not be reached and the goods price unchange or change but not too much. example in Papua, the field  is so hard for land tranport. Papuaness prefer to aeroplane, so travel cost is just the same like previously or change but not too much.

3. Actually, Indonesia is in International trading link area (below picture). Indonesia wasn't thinking about this opportunity. Nowadays, there is mega project for developing Tanjung Priok port. But, from the picture, It'd better Belawan or Kuala Tanjung port for developing. Singapore port gets benefit because, Singapore is in the strategic area for international trading. Why Indonesia's just thingking about Java island??? Indonesia should be thinking about bigger interest. Imagine, If several containers from Singapore move to Belawan or Kuala Tanjung port, and then become a mega hub port from Indonesia, economic of Indonesia will be better.

Source : Simutrans Forum (2012), Fortune Magazine (2012)

 references :

1. www.google.com

2. http://www.merdeka.com/peristiwa/gubernur-papua-harga-bensin-di-papua-rp-100-ribuliter.html

3. http://bem.its.ac.id/sebuah-sudut-pandang-apa-kabar-tol-laut/

Journey of English

When I was in thesis, I decided to look for some courses to improve my english, because I have lots of free time and I realized that english is very important. At that time I belived that I could make my life better with english. Some english courses were mainstream. I wanted to look for something new.  So I just look for the course in Jogjakarta region. 

I looked for course with the way they teach, they can make english as a habit, so I can practice everyday. Suddenly in my mind appeared, how about if I live in english environment, so I can make english as a habit. I remembered there were some people told me that I could go to Pare for learning english, but I couldn't, because I was still having to do in my campus, so I should go properly to my camppuss. Just for your information, Pare is a district with a lot of very good english courses, so in that district we can learn english well and have english environment, and focus for just learning english.

Fortunately, my dormitory contract would finish at the end of month, so directly I searched in the internet where could i find the good course like I wanted in Jogjakarta. Just like proverb said "There is a will, There is a way", I found what I wanted. I found English Home. English home is one of Jogja English Program. English Home served 24 hours english zone. 

Then, I went to Jogja English's office for registration. After I moved, in the first day I loved the environment, everyone spoke english, just like what I wanted. if you want to improve your speaking just come to English home. 

English home has skill building in the morning and in the evening for improving english ability. I belive that you will have confidence for speaking after at least one-two month(s) staying at the english home.