Public Works and Public Housing Minister Basuki Hadimuljono said the ministry was offering several toll road projects as a public private partnership. (Photo: thejakartapost.com) Jakarta (VNA) - The Indonesian government will offer six toll road projects with a combined value of 80.5 trillion Rp (5.3 billion USD) to investors this year, with an aim to recover the economy after the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Jakarta Post.
The projects consist of five private toll road projects and an 8.7 trillion Rp government project for highway bridges connecting Batam Island with the nearby islands of Tanjung Sauh, Buau and Bintan in Riau Islands province.
The Public Works and Housing Ministry is offering the investment projects in the form of public private partnership (PPP), according to Minister Basuki Hadimulyono.
“All projects have great economic and financial value such as the Patimban toll road access, which I think will be highly profitable because Patimban will have a container port for exporting vehicles,” Basuki said on April 30 during the online market sounding for the projects.
Basuki was referring to the Japan-funded deep sea port in Patimban, West Java, one of the government’s national strategic projects. The Patimban Deep Seaport is to be Indonesia’s export hub.
One of the private projects – or unsolicited proposals (USPs) – is the 32.4-km Semanan-Balaraja toll road connecting Jakarta and Tangerang, which needs an estimated 15.5 trillion Rp in investment.
Other projects include the Cikunir-Ulujami elevated toll road valued at 21.5 trillion Rp, to be constructed above the Jakarta Outer Ring Road (JORR), and the 61.5km South Sentul-West Karawang toll road project valued at 15.3 trillion Rp.
In Central Java, private companies will be invited to bid on the 11.7 trillion Rp Patimban toll road access project and the 8.7 trillion Rp Semarang Port toll road project to connect the provincial capital with the seaport.
Basuki said that the ministry was pushing forward with its infrastructure projects so that the government would be better prepared for the post-pandemic economic rebound.
The documents for the six new infrastructure projects are being finalised for auctioning in the third and fourth quarters of 2020, according to the ministry.
PPP and financial engineering deputy director Novie Andriani of the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas) said on the same occasion that the projects are part of the government’s plan to build 2,000 km of toll roads under the 2020-2024 National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN).
Toll roads are among the 41 priority projects in the 2020-2024 RPJMN, and have a combined estimated value of 7.4 quadrillion Rp.
The 2020-2024 RPJMN is expected to help transform the economy toward President Joko Widodo’s goal for Indonesia to become one of the top five economies in the world by 2045 and achieve a poverty rate of almost zero percent./.
VNA
