Indonesia plans to construct a new container transshipment terminal that is seen to compete with the ports of Singapore and Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia upon its completion in 2015.
Construction of the deepwater facility in Tanjung Sauh near Batam across the Singapore Strait from PSA International’s Singapore facilities is set to start next year.
With an initial investment of around IDR7 trillion, or US$756 million, the port will have 2 kilometers of pier and an estimated transshipment capacity of 4 million 20-foot equivalent units.
The container terminal will be part of a sea corridor of six ports that can serve as transit points for smaller feeder ports all across the archipelago, a report from The Jakarta Post said. The five other ports are those of Medan, Jakarta, Surabaya, Makassar, and Sorong.
The Tanjung Sauh port is included in Indonesia’s revitalization program for its transport industry that aims to attract more East Asian traffic. Earlier, state-owned port operator Indonesia Port Corporation vowed to invest more than $2.5 billion to expand Tanjung Priok port, the country’s premier port located near the capital Jakarta.
Tanjung Sauh is regarded as an ideal site for a container terminal since it hardly requires dredging or reclamation and has space to expand, as it sits across the island from the existing port at Batu Ampar.
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