Indonesian National Shipowners Association (INSA) chairperson Carmelita Hartoto was cited as saying that the cabotage principle had helped local shipowners compete with foreign-flagged vessels in the goods transportation sector and the offshore sector should be next to see its benefits.
“Ten years ago before the government enforced the cabotage principle, foreign vessels dominated our sea transportation, serving 44.5% of domestic [passenger] transportation and 90% of import and export activities,” she said. “Nine years after the cabotage principle took effect, around 359.67m tons of cargo out of 360.95m tons in total, or 99.65%, are transported by national-flagged ships,” Carmelita added.
She noted, however, that Indonesian-flagged ships had yet to dominate the offshore sector. “At least by the end of 2015 we will start dominating that sector,” Carmelita said.
Separately, INSA head of offshore division Nova Mugijanto said that in 2005 there were only around 350 Indonesian-flagged vessels serving offshore activities, but this number had since doubled.
“National-flagged vessels already lead offshore supporting activities, but foreign ship owners still dominate the seismic, drilling and dredging vessels in the offshore sector,” Nova said. “We are optimistic that (those sectors) will all be operated by national flagged vessels by the end of 2015.”
He revealed that 10% of around 1,000 INSA members already operated in the offshore sector, but limited human resources remained a challenge to further growth in the sector. “A lot of Indonesian offshore-vessel crews work on foreign vessels due to the limited domestic demand. By the time the demand picks up, I think they will opt to work on local vessels,” Nova said.
Transportation Ministry secretary-general Leon Muhammad said that the ministry was cooperating with the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry to boost the presence of Indonesian-flagged ships within the sector.
“The cabotage principle only applies to cargo and passenger ships, therefore, we want to apply the regulation in stages to offshore vessels, too,” Leon was quoted as saying.
INSA figures show that the number of Indonesian vessels rose to 12,774 as at last October, from 11,628 in October 2012. The rising number of vessels has also increased volume or capacity from 16.08m gross tonnage (GT) in October 2012 to 18.20m GT as at last October.
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