JAKARTA. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has said it is ready to sign a loan agreement with the Indonesian government to finance the Patimban port project in West Java.

Speaking to journalists after a meeting with Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan in Jakarta on Tuesday, JICA’s senior representative in Indonesia, Muraoka hiromichi, said his agency was now waiting for the government to proceed with the project.

"It depends on the process in the government of Indonesia. We are waiting for the process," he said.

The loan agreement was initially to be signed in June but was delayed because it had not been put in the foreign loan document – or "green book" – of the National Development Planning Board.

The Transportation Ministry has estimated the contract value of the project at around Rp 10 trillion (US$ 750.86 million).

As one of the national strategic projects, the Patimban port, construction on which is expected to being at the end of 2017, will help improve logistics in the country.

The port is designed to have a container capacity of 1.5 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) once it is partially completed in 2019 and 7.5 million TEUs by 2027, about half the capacity of the country’s busiest port, Jakarta’s Tanjung Priok.

The port is located in Subang, about 70 kilometers from the Karawang Industrial Estate in Bekasi, West Java, where many Japanese industrial firms, particularly automotive manufacturers, operate. (dis/bbn)

Editor: Sanny Cicilia