Forum panellists urge businesses to monitor policies of new Jakarta govt

BEEFING up the country's infrastructure is top-most on the Jokowi administration's to-do list in the next five years. Looking to build on the archipelago's strengths as a maritime economy, Jakarta has plans to build 24 harbours and 198 shipyards in that time frame.

The country is also looking to build more than 5,000 km of rail and to generate 35,000 megawatts more of electricity through a network of new power plants by 2019.

These details came from Indroyono Soesilo, the country's recently appointed Maritime Coordinating Minister, who presented the keynote address at the Indonesia Forum 2015 in Singapore last Friday.

Building the infrastructure is one matter. The Jokowi government also wants productivity and efficiency to be watchwords at these facilities. Dr Indroyono noted, for example, that it now costs thrice as much to ship products within Indonesi…