INDUSTRY.co.id - Jakarta- Directorate General of Sea Transportation Ministry of Transportation (Kemenhub) increased pioneering route to 113 stretch in 2018.

"Directorate General of Sea Transportation will also improve services by adding pioneer sea transport routes to 113 routes," said Director General of Sea Transportation Bay M Hasani in a written statement in Jakarta on Tuesday (3/9/2017)

Bay said the addition of the route is in line with the completion of the construction of new pioneer ships by 10 units in 2016 and 50 units by the end of December 2017.

He said that from year to year the Directorate General of Sea Transportation is continuously working to improve the pioneer sea transport services, both in terms of the number of fleets of vessels, ship routes and budgets.

Based on data from Directorate General of Sea Transportation, pioneering sea transport service in 2016 is 96 routes served by 54 units of state ships and 42 units of private vessels.

Increased by 2017, the Government serves 96 pioneer sea transport routes, of which 46 routes are served by PT Pelni through an assignment mechanism and 50 other routes are serviced by private shipping companies through an auction mechanism.

Similarly, budget allocations continue to increase if in 2016 the budget for pioneering operations of Rp930.99 billion increased in 2017 to Rp943.99 billion consisting of a budget for vessels operated by PT Pelni amounting to Rp512.92 billion and private vessels of Rp431, 07 billion.

"We are working to improve connectivity or inter-island interconnection in Indonesia, one of them is by improving services through the development of pioneer vessels located throughout Indonesia and other infrastructure improvements," he said.