While the programme is meant to help ease the transportation of basic needs such as sugar, rice, cooking oil, meat and construction material, retailers are still figuring out how to use it, said Indonesian Retailers Association (Aprindo) chairman Roy Nicholas Mandey after a meeting at the State Logistics Agency (Bulog).
"We had no idea how to use the maritime highway," he said, adding the association would discuss the request with the government and push for access to the programme's facilities to send their goods from western to eastern regions within the country.
One of the president's key policy initiatives, the maritime highway currently has 13 routes to help ease logistics to the more remote eastern regions of Indonesia.
Roy said that if retailers accessed the maritime highway's facilities, logistics costs to eastern Indonesia could be reduced by 15% to 20%.
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