Indonesia to import 2,500 ships from China

JAKARTA, Jan. 28 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) will import 2,500 units of short sea ship from China aiming to improve the logistics and distribution performance among ports scattered throughout the archipelago, an Indonesia official said here Monday.

Natsir Mansyur, Vice Chairman of Kadin's Trade, Distribution and Logistics division said Kadin has signed the agreement with China and the total of 2,500 units ship worth 5 billion U.S. dollars will be delivered gradually within 5 years starting 2013.

"Indonesia's logistic costs are quite high due to the limited infrastructure and armada, we needs to boost the logistics operations," Natsir said, as quoted by Indonesia's news portal merdeka.com.

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 shows Indonesia's position in 2012 Logistics Performance Index at 2.94 in the scale of 5, while its rank is in the position of 59, lagging behind its regional peers such as the Philippines and Vietnam.