Regional Development Orientation for Eastern Part of Indonesia in Globalization Era
East Indonesia Development Background
National Development Policy Guidelines 1993 states the needs to synchronize interregional development growth and to encourage regional autonomy within the context of national points of view (wawasan nusantara). The implication of the policy is that regional development policy is not only implemented by giving compensation of financial allocation to the less-developed region such as East Indonesia's provinces, but more focussed to enhance a self-sustained development approach in each province/region to manage and develop their own development potential sources for the sake of regional development and national development, in general.
In the first long-term national
development period (PJP I), interregional economic development shows a
tendency that in general Java's provinces grew more rapidly than outer
Java's provinces. The issue of regional disparity consists of inequality
of interregional development welfare and growth, in particular between
Java and outer Java, west Indonesia and east Indonesia, and between rural
and urban area. Besides those imbalances, there are many less-developed
regions still exist, such as isolated, minus and critical regions, and
state-border areas.
Development Investment for East Indonesia
The figure of regional investment distribution in 1983-1990 period shows that development investment in East Indonesia is still much lower than in west Indonesia region, i.e., public investment (28.5%) as well as private investment (8.4%). However, the tendency shows increasing form the previous period, i.e., 23.9% for public investment and 7.7% for private one. According to the regional development scenario in Repelita VI, it needs to enhance public investment growth from Inpres and sectoral DIPs for outer Java's provinces. The implication to east Indonesia region at the end of Repelita VI is that the public investment will increase its sharing from 26% in 1993 to be 27.6% in 1998. At the end of PJP II, the proportion of public investment in east Indonesia region will increase to be approximately 30%.
The development scenario for accelerating regional development growth in less-developed regions show a reorientation for the development in the outer Java's region. As a result, it will shows that private investment portion in Java will be decreased from 73.6% at the beginning of Repelita VI to about 71.7% at the end of Repelita VI, while in east Indonesia region will be increased from 11.4% to 12.6% at the same period.
Another implication will be occurred
by the reorientation of non-oil and gas export. National macro economic
development growth tells that export growth will still be depended to Java's
provinces. By introducing reorientation of public and private investment
to outer Java=s provinces, it is estimated that the export performance
in east Indonesia region will be greater that average national export growth,
which is 12.7%.
Constraints and Challenges in East Indonesia Development
In general, the problems faced by the government to develop east Indonesia region are as follows: (I) lack of physical infrastructures (social and economics); (ii) lack of human resource (in quality and quantity as well); (iii) geographically huge areas, scattered and relatively far and isolated from national centers; (iv) lack of local government and institutional capability; (v) weak regional economic structure and low contribution for national economic development; and (vi) slow regional development growth and low quality of labor.
Within the region itself, the issue of disparity also can be seen, such as disparity in development infrastructure availability, i.e., between more-developed provinces such as East and West Kalimantan, North and South Sulawesi. However, in general, the availability and the reliability of infrastructures in East Indonesia are still needs to be developed and improved, such as transportation networks, telecommunication, and electricity.
In order to reduce the imbalance of development and enhancing east Indonesia development, it needs to increase public investment to support development in the less-developed region. In line with more public investment to the region, the provision of incentives for investment in the region will be encouraged. The attractiveness for private investment by providing fiscal and monetary incentives is being processed by the government, in order to encourage private investment in the east Indonesia region. By considering the characteristics of the region and the constraints of the development, it is realized to have priority areas to be developed as growth centers at the beginning, which planned to be spread out the adjacent regions and its hinterlands. One of the development policies to develop such priority areas in east Indonesia region is called the development of the integrated economic development areas (KAPET/kawasan pengembangan ekonomi terpadu), which is prioritized to the 13 KAPET at the first stage in 13 provinces of east Indonesia region in the 1996/97 fiscal year.
The Development of 13 Priority Areas for Integrated Economic Development in East Indonesia
In Repelita VI, the national strategy for spatial planning states the policy to set up priority areas which have strategic values in the national development. The development of those priority areas is implemented by inter-sectoral or regional approach, and focussing to attract more private investment in the areas and its surrounding regions.
In east Indonesia region, the national strategy for spatial planning has established 111 priority areas to be developed in PJP II, i.e., 56 areas located in east Indonesia region. For each priority area, it has been identified the strategic potential sectors can be developed optimally, which consists of eight strategic sectors as follows: estate crops, food crops, fisheries, livestock, forestry, industry, tourism, and mining.
Accompanying those priority areas and their identified strategic sectors, there were production regions in east Indonesia such as for food crops in South Sulawesi, North Sumbawa, Kendari, and Gorontalo; estate crops in Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku, and Irian Jaya; forest-related products in Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Irian Jaya; fisheries in Maluku; and livestock in Nusatenggara and Irian Jaya.
In line with the development policy for the priority integrated economic development areas, there is a policy for the development of urbanized regions in east Indonesia which planned as the center for development for their surrounding areas, such as national development centers in Ujung Pandang, Manado, Pontianak, Banjarmasin, Kupang, and Jayapura; interregional development centers in Balikpapan, Samarinda, Palangkaraya, Mataram, Dili, Ambon, Merauke, Sorong, Palu, and Kendari.
Strengthening East Indonesia Position for Globalization
In order to implement the development policy for east Indonesia region, it needs to enhancing and strengthening its linkages with global and international economy, by developing regional growth centers in the region which has economic linkages to the international growth centers. The regional growth centers in east Indonesia have been established and identified in the national strategy for spatial planning, which classified into three level of centers such as nationally, interregionally, and regionally (locally). Related to the linkages to other international growth centers, there are national development centers that can be developed as follows:
In order to compete with the countries in each sub-regional economic cooperation, the east Indonesia region is strengthening its information system for regional development and integrated area development.
However, by considering that the
regional cooperation may not only depend on the public investment, the
role of private sectors has to be enhanced. This reason is very related
to the principal mechanism for the sub-regional economic cooperation such
as BIMP-EAGA, which has to be implemented by "private-led economic cooperation".
To support the implementation of the cooperation mechanism, the role of
private sector investment in east Indonesia is still need to be encouraged,
by providing incentives in fiscal and monetary fields parallel to the provision
of sufficient basic infrastructures for regional development and basic
infrastructure requirement for private investment in east Indonesia region.