Japan announces Indonesian projects worth $815 mln

Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru announced a set of projects worth a total of JPY129 billion ($815 million) in Indonesia during his meeting with President Prabowo Subianto on Saturday.

Of the total, a third expansion of Patimban port in West Java is to receive the lion’s share of the funding, JPY 83.4 billion, in the form of a loan with an interest rate of between 0 and 3% that was signed on Friday.

The expansion is to increase the port’s car export capacity to 600,000 units a year, 1.5 times the current nationwide volume.

Since 2017, Tokyo has granted more than JPY189 billion in loans for the first two phases of the construction of Patiban port, which seeks to alleviate the cargo traffic burden at Indonesia’s major port, Tanjung Priok, in Jakarta.

Japan is also looking to help improve existing fishing ports and is planning to conduct feasibility studies on eight potential locations across the country before deciding which to work on.

The fisheries development plan, signed on December 24 last year, is to be financed by a JPY15.54 billion loan and include port expansion and the construction of cold chain facilities at the selected location.

Other projects include a JPY7 billion loan for the professional development of government officials at the central and regional levels, with a target of training 7,240 officials within seven years. This is a big leap from the 4,500 officials trained with Japanese funding in the past 35 years.

In addition to the projects above, the two leaders discussed existing cooperation efforts, including the development of the Jakarta mass rapid transit and defence collaboration.

According to the Japanese Embassy in Indonesia, Japan will continue supporting the expansion of geothermal energy projects in the country. Besides, the Jakarta-Japan Club, which groups Japanese enterprises in the country, also aims to increase its contributions to the local economy to 36% by the end of 2030, up from some 16% recorded last year.