SOEs Urged to Accelerate Ddevelopment of Kuala Tanjung Industrial Park

The IMIP complex focuses on nickel smelting and nickel-content stainless steel production.

The government has urged state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to accelerate the development of Kuala Tanjung industrial park in North Sumatra into an integrated aluminum-focused complex with a seaport and a railway.

The first stage of the development of the complex, developed jointly by state aluminum producer Indonesia Asahan Aluminium (Inalum) and port operator Pelindo I, is scheduled to finish this year.

Industry Ministry industrial park development director general Imam Haryono said Inalum had just set up technology to produce 30,000 tons of aluminum billets. “Inalum will in the future use the Kuala Tanjung Port developed by Pelindo I,” he told The Jakarta Post recently.

Pelindo I, meanwhile, has announced that 80 to 90 percent of the port was completed in April.

Imam said the government aimed to develop the complex as a cost-efficient, integrated industrial park, just like Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP).

The IMIP complex focuses on nickel smelting and nickel-content stainless steel production.

The Kuala Tanjung complex is to be developed in several phases—first, the construction of a multipurpose terminal (2015-2017); second, the development of an industrial area on 3,000 hectares of land (2016-2018); third, the development of an international container port (2017-2019);  and forth, a residential area (2021-2023).

Located in a strategic location near the busy waters of the Malacca Strait, Kuala Tanjung was designed to become one of the country’s largest transit hubs once finished. (bbn, Stefani Ribka, The Jakarta Post)