However, the maritime sector could fully contribute only when development in all maritime sub-sectors is in step with institutional reform and development of human resources, Central Bank Governor Agus Martowardojo said after a coordinating meeting with the central government and regional administration here on Friday.
Agus also sees the irony that the maritime sector has very little economic contribution in Indonesia, which has a vast sea territory and is known as the worlds largest archipelago.
The maritime sector contributes only around 4 percent to the countrys Gross Domestic Product (GDP), he said.
"This is because our shipbuilding and ship component industry is still weak, foreign domination of shipping and limited skilled human resources," he said.
Agus said economic inefficiency in the maritime sector is also a bottleneck in the effort to improve the countrys economic fundamentals.
Inefficiency the maritime sector accounts for 80 percent of the countrys service account deficit which reached US$8.4 billion in 2015.
"For example, in shipping insurance, Indonesia relies much on foreign insurance firm. So is in shipping industry Indonesia largely uses foreign ships resulting in big deficit in service account," he said.
The central government and regional administrations could not go each way in coping the national problems, he said, adding the government needs to adopt an integrative policy to create activities in the upstream and downstream sectors supporting each other.
Agus also stressed the importance of integration in development strategy in logistic infrastructure and area development.
"There should be synergy in policy in the development shipbuilding, shipping , fisheries and tourism industries," he said.
Agus asked the government to continue and strengthen the policy in cabotage principle to reduce the foreign domination in shipping.
The cabotage principle restricts foreign ships from operation in domestic shipping and in the transport of government imports.
The government also has applied the cabotage principle on several types of offshore vessels in a bid to boost Indonesia-flagged ships within the sector.
Foreign dredging ships with a capacity of less than 5,000 gross tonnage (GT) were previously allowed but under the new regulation, foreign companies are only allowed to operate ships over 5,000 GT.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
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