State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) Ministry has just announced the merger of state port operators – PT Pelabuhan Indonesia (Pelindo) I, II, III, and IV. The four state port operators will be merged into one corporate – Pelindo. According to the SOEs Ministry, the merger will be effective next month, October 1, 2021.
Will the merger have impacts on the port operation and development, including the Pelindo’s biggest port Tanjung Priok? Will those ports be ready for the merger?
Talking to press recently (Thursday, September 2), General Manager of Tanjung Priok Port Guna Mulyana underlined that Tanjung Priok was ready to go with the mission of the merger, but noted that there would be no significant change in the Tanjung Priok Port operation and the port would continue to do some development works for improving the port performance.
“We are ready for the merger and to go with the merger mission. But, the port will run normal and as usual,” Guna Mulyana said.
As reported earlier, SOEs Ministry explained that this merge is done in a bid to build a stronger national port industry, build up maritime connectivity throughout the country, and to build up port operator competitiveness.
This merger also remains part of the government’s strategic program and the SOEs Ministry’s initiative in continuing consolidation process in state owned enterprises, including state port operators. This is also a part of National Strategic Program as President Joko Widodo has called for.
In the merger plan, Pelindo II will become the merger-recipient company. Pelindo I, Pelindo III and Pelindo IV will be dissolved by law without a liquidation process.
This merger, according to President Director PT Pelindo II Arif Suhartono, would support the corporate (Pelindo) to have a better control and strategic controlling. The development planning will be more holistic to realize an integrated port network, thus finally supporting a lower logistics costs.
After merger, the Pelindo management model will not be region-based again, but based on business lines and entities, thus business focusing can be realized better.
Business focusing according to clusters will improve capabilities and expertise which will have an impact on increasing customer satisfaction through better service quality and increased efficiency in the use of financial resources, assets, and human resources.
“We (Tanjung Priok) will be ready for business refocusing,” Guna Mulyana said.
The Pelindo merger will make it to stay at the top ten of global port operator, in view of container volume. In a year, total Pelindo ports’ total volume reaches more than 16 million TEUS, in which Tanjung Priok contributes the highest of more than 6-7 million TEUs/year.
As Pelindo’s leading port, Tanjung Priok is expected to be the leader in realising the mission. Improving service level and increasing productivity are expected from this port, in a bid to realize the corporate mission of (global) competitiveness.
“We continue to do improvement and increase productivity,” Guna Mulyana said.
According to data, amid the pandemic Covid-19 outbreak, Tanjung Priok still enjoyed container throughput growth and ship calls (GT). In the first semester this year (H1/2021), Tanjung Priok throughput reached 3.3 million TEUs, increasing from 2.99 million TEUs in the same period last year (H1/2020).
“We expect this year will be higher than last year,” Guna Mulyana said. Last year (2020), Tanjung Priok throughput reached 6.21 million TEUs.
Improvement Programs Realization
Guna Mulyana affirmed there are some improvement works need for implementation acceleration to unlock some bottlenecks at the port, especially to overcome of the problem of traffic jam.
Tanjung Priok will continue to realize the plan of building inner access. “We continue our efforts to finalize some problems that halt this program implementation. We hope we will soon realize it (inner access development),” he said.
Tanjung Priok will also soon to adopt single-TID (truck identity document), a program that have been postponed for several times. “We have got recommendation from Hubla (Directorate General of Sea Transportation). Hopefully, this (Single-TID) will soon on be adopted this month (September),” said Guna Mulyana.