Transport

Investors will risk capital on long-term projects only when they expect to capture adequate returns from their investments. However, they will only do that if they can forecast, with some certainty, the length of time it will take to complete such projects. Since 1993, the Indonesian government has promulgated various regulations on land...

The government is addressing challenges relating to a lack of high-quality infrastructure by encouraging public-private partnerships (PPPs). Infrastructure investment has lagged in recent years, averaging 3-4% of GDP since 2000, well down on the 7% or more from before the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s. While recent years have seen...

Sea transport is vitally important to Indonesia. The archipelago nation’s maritime zone covers 7.9m sq km, almost four times its land area. While coastal shipping accounts for about 7% of total national freight and passenger movements, 90% of Indonesia’s external trade is conducted through seaports. Between 2005 and 2010 container throughput...

For an archipelago spread over 17,500 islands and spanning 5000 km from west to east, the need for Indonesia to have an efficient transport network that seamlessly integrates sea, land and air transport systems is manifestly evident. The transport sector is the backbone of the economy, accounting for more than 40% of overall infrastructure...

A report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in 2013 put it pretty bluntly. “Without aggressive and sustained support and restructuring, the Thailand railway system is likely to become irrelevant within 10 years,” the ADB said in March 2013. Given the falling number of passengers, declining freight usage and frequent derailments in recent years, the process might seem to...

By coordinating its extensive, if fragmented and disjointed, network of buses, underground trains, elevated trains and boats, Bangkok can lay claim to the whole being greater than the sum of the parts, depending upon its degree of success.