Indonesia to resume train access to seaport

Indonesia would re-enact train access to the country's largest seaport with an aim to reduce severe traffic jams around the seaport and reduce the dwelling time of cargoes in the seaport.

"It can significantly reduce one third of traffic jams. If we continue using trucks to transport cargoes it would be costly, not efficient in term of time," Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Rizal Ramli said in visit in Jakarta's seaport of Tanjung Priok on Thursday.

He said that government would reuse the railway track initially built by the Dutch colonial serving the seaport to railway track connecting various cities in Java.

Head of Indonesia's state-run Train Transport firm Edi Sukomoro said that the firm would immediately dismantle the concrete blocks and buildings that covered the railway tracks for many years.

"We have summoned the people whose properties built above the tracks. They seemed to agree the compensation. We expect there won 't be any hurdle in the future. The compensation was expected to be finished later this month. The dismantling works can be carried out early next month," he said.

He expected that the railway tracks would be ready to serve early next year. "We expect it on February or March next year," he said.

Indonesian President has issued economic policy reform package recently, aimed at accelerating activities to boost up the nation' s economy.

The package contains deregulation on infrastructure project permission procedure, compensation, tax incentive, cut short the bureaucracy procedure and improve legal certainty so as to entice more investors coming to help the nation in pursuing higher growth. Endi