Mr. Jokowi, North Kalimantan Needs Infrastructure Support To Attract Investors

Tanjung Batu Beacon Tower in North Kalimantan (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The Provincial Government of North Kalimantan (Kaltara) has openly requested support from the central government to continue to improve infrastructure development in the region. The statement was delivered by the Regional Secretary of Kaltara Suriansyah in a webinar today.

According to him, the ability of local governments (Pemda) to pursue development targets is not sufficiently qualified if they rely on local resources.

"To be honest, if we only rely on the Regional Budget (Regional Revenue and Expenditure Budget) in Kaltara, it is indeed very limited," he said, Wednesday, October 13.

Suriansyah added that the availability of facilities and infrastructure is an important key for improving people's welfare. In addition, he assessed that the presence of a number of infrastructures could be an effective way to increase the bargaining power of Kaltara in the eyes of investors.

"We want to continue to be given support, especially from the Ministry of Public Works, the Ministry of Transportation, and the Ministry of Communication and Information so that supporting facilities can continue to be built. This is important so that investors can invest well in Kaltara,” he said.

Moreover, Suriansyah said that North Kalimantan is one of the few provinces in Indonesia which is directly adjacent to a neighboring country from a geographical point of view.

“Incidentally, Kaltara is bordered by Malaysia, namely Sarawak and Sabah. Therefore, we really hope for support from the central government so that supporting facilities can continue to be present here,” he said.

For information, North Kalimantan is a new province resulting from the division of East Kalimantan in the era of the 2000s ago. This area has an area of 45,467 square kilometers with a population of about 700,000 people.

According to Suriansyah, Kaltara has a myriad of economic potentials that have not been utilized optimally, such as hydropower with a capacity of more than 20,000 megawatts, oil and natural gas mining, forestry 4.4 million hectares with an estimated total timber production of 1.3 million cubic meters.

Then, there are 800,000 hectares of plantations with only 500,000 hectares of land used, 2.1 million tons of CPO production, and capture fisheries and aquaculture with production areas of hundreds of thousands of hectares.

"We are grateful to Mr. President Jokowi who has come to North Kalimantan several times. This is a form of attention to us. In fact, he even rode a motorbike to the border area to see the development here," concluded Suriansyah.