By: Bambang Sabekti, Professional in Maritime Industry
Amid the busyness of IPC consolidating to prepare for the later Pelindo merger, Tanjung Priok Port again chalked up a brilliant business achievement for container segment. Throughput in the first half of 2021 showed a significant growth. Year on year (compared to the same period as last year), the H1 volume increased by almost 10% and 19% for international and domestic, respectively. Such significant increase is expected to continue in the remaining months of the year, proved by July productivity which by 3.10% compared to the previous month for international volumes.
Tanjung Priok which is the busiest port in Indonesia, serves more than 60% of loading and unloading activities for containers for international and domestic. So, it is not surprising that Tanjung Priok becomes one of the pillars of logistic activities, which becomes the node point of relations between countries / regions, and also becomes a place of intra and intermodal transportation movement that sustains export and import activities in Indonesia. Because without the support of a good logistics ecosystem, international trade that uses containers will be constrained.
The Priok volume growth was in line with the national economy positive growth. The massive export activity during the period has significantly support the national economic growth in the second quarter. Based on the report of the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) economic growth in the second quarter of 2021 reached 3.31%, compared to the same quarter last year and the economy grew 7.07% year-on-year.
This increase in exports, cannot be separated from the accuracy of government policy that classifies a logistic as an essential sector, so that logistic mobility is not limited, and all business people in this sector continue to operate 24/7 even in the Covid-19 “pagebluk” period.
For Main Line Operators (MLO Global), Indonesia is a good market, especially in the main ports. So, no wonder they still provide containers here to support exports from Indonesia, although the exporters still have to still spend very deep to pay the freight (ocean freight) which is still soaring. Every week thousands of empty containers are sent to Jakarta especially containers for size 40 HC, and d45 to support NIKE’s cargo. This year, MLO again will reap big profits. Even, they will gain high profit until next year as market demand is still high, while supply is less than demand because of blank of sailings for certain trades.
Amid various disruptions in various world ports, it does not seem to have much effect on the volume at Tanjong Priok, although many ships are being disrupted due to congestion in several ports in China and the United States.
However, behind the excitement news above, there is still a concern why Indonesia’s logistic costs are still expensive, so various efforts to lower logistic costs, both through National Logistics Ecosystem (NLE) later with Pelindo.
In a hearing between Commission VI of the House of Representatives (DPR) and the Deputy Minister of SOEs and the board of Directors of Pelindo I-IV, politically, the DPR supported the Pelindo merger, in hopes of lowering national logistic costs and improving connectivity considering that our country is an archipelago country which in turn will increase the competitiveness of our export products in the global market.
There have been dozens of seminars held to discuss how to lower national logistic costs, but until now there have been no significant results.
Based on research conducted by SPIRE Research, our Logistic Performance Index is still low, only slightly better than the Philippines, and inferior to Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia.
In terms of efficiency “80% of backhaul trucks are empty”. For this reason, we must continue to encourage the implementation of dual move / dual cycle for container trucking so that it can reduce logistic costs and also reduce congestion.
Even now in era 4.0, shipper supply chain management system and carrier fleet management system is still manual and undeveloped. In addition, cargo flows, documentation and shipping information are still done manually, making it difficult to connect and regulate the flow as a whole.
Geographically, logistics costs are high due to the nature of the Indonesian archipelago and the many vendors required to carry cargo between islands and shipping delays on times are uncertain due to uncertain road conditions (traffic, flooding, demonstrations etc.).
There is still a lot of homework to be done to get better performance enable to lowering the national logistics cost and able increase the competitiveness of our export products in the global market.