VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The Indonesian government has decided to drop 14 of its national strategic projects considering that no physical construction of the projects will be seen until the third quarter of 2019.

"If no physical construction of a project is seen not to begin until the third quarter of 2019 we will consider it as being canceled or dropped," Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Darmin Nasution said here Monday at a press conference at the presidential office after a cabinet meeting to evaluate implementation of national strategic projects in the first quarter of 2018.

Based on the evaluation some of the projects have been found not progressing well such as the Jambi-Palembang railway project, the railway development project in East Kalimantan, regional drinking water supply system in North Sumatra, Pelosika dam project in Southeast Sulawesi and special economic zone project in Merauke. Darmin said that those projects still had the potential to be revived as strategic projects in the future. He said the total value of the canceled projects reached Rp264 trillion.

According to the attachment of Presidential Regulation Number 58, 2017 on the amendment of Presidential Regulation Number 3, 2016 on Acceleration of the Implementation of national strategic projects there are 55 new projects and one aircraft industry program that are included in the national strategic projects to make the total number of national strategic projects into 245. Of the total, 10 have been finished and one is a new additional project in the education sector.

Following an evaluation the government decided to include 222 projects and three programs into National Strategic Projects 2018 consisting of 69 road development projects, 51 dam projects, 29 zone development projects including special economic zone, industrial zone and national strategic tourism zone, 16 railway projects, 11 energy projects, 10 ports, eight clean water and sanitation projects, six airports, six irrigation networks, six smelters, four technology projects, three housing projects, one farming-fishery, one sea wall and one education project which is the development of Indonesia International Islam University. 

Programs that are included into the National Strategic Projects are aircraft development program, agrarian and forestry programs. Darmin said the total value of the National Strategic Projects reached Rp4,100 trillion.