China to Build 2,500 Ships for Indonesia

Indonesia Chamber of Commerce & Industry (Kadin) to import 2,500 short sea service ships from China starting this year.

Natsir Mansyur, Vice Chairman of Kadin's Trade, Distribution and Logistics division informed Xinhua, the officeal China News Agency, that Kadin has signed the agreement with China and a total of 2,500 coastal and short sea ships worth US$5-billion will be delivered gradually within 5 years starting 2013.

The massive order for ships is aimed to improve the logistics and distribution performance amongst ports scattered throughout the Indonesian archipelago,

Transporting goods in Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago with 17,000 islands, is very costly due to poor logistics and bad infrastructure. A report released by World Bank showed Indonesia's position in the 2012 Logistics Performance Index at 2.94 on a scale of 5, ranking it 59th, to lag behind its regional peers, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Source: Xinhua