REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BOGOR -- Indonesia and Japan have agreed to expedite the construction of Patimban Port in Subang District, West Java, which is scheduled for completion next year. Work on the project will be completed more intensively, Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi stated after accompanying President Joko Widodo during a meeting with a special envoy of Japanese Prime Minister Toshihiro Nikai and entourage at the Bogor Presidential Palace on Friday.

"We have been working more intensively. In fact, during our discussion with the Japanese delegation, they said the Patimban project will be realized three times faster than usual. This means that it is very fast. If other projects need three years, the Patimban project will only need one year. God willing, it will be completed next year," he remarked.

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The port is expected to become operational in March 2019. "To this end, we have been working simultaneously to choose its operator," he noted.

The operator will be a consortium of Indonesian and Japanese companies, with the Indonesian side holding a majority stake to decide the operations and management of the company, he revealed.

Sumadi noted that the government will develop the Patimban port, with a capacity to handle more than seven million twenty-foot equivalent units. The port will be equipped with a container terminal built on 35 hectares of land.

Before Patimban is designated to replace Cilamaya as the site of the port, the Transportation Ministry had designed it as a regional feeder port.

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