The City of Pekanbaru in Riau province is planning to build a Rp28 trillion (about USD590 million) downstream industrial complex to process Crude Palm Oil, Pekanbaru spokesman’s office said on its official website on the weekend.
Pekanbaru Mayor Firdaus MT was quoted in a report published on the website on Saturday (25/1) as saying that the agro industrial complex that would process CPO into a number of products will be built at the city’s Tenayan Industrial zone. He said that a total of 3,000 hectares would be used for the complex but the first phase would involve slightly more than 1,500 hectares.
“This will open employment, some 155,000 jobs and will require an investment of Rp 28 trillion, Therefore the central government and those in the region must work in synergy,” Firdaus said.
The Tenayan area in Pekanbaru has been designated as one of the 14 strategic industrial zones on Sumatra and thus hold a priority for development.
The Pekanbaru spokesman office also quoted the head of the City Trade and Industry Office, Ingot Ahmad Hutasuhut as saying that the city already had 266 hectares of land in the designated Tenayan industrial zone and therefore is now in the process of freeing land to meet the 1,550 hectares earmarked for the first phase of the development.
“We will not take it from the municipal budget. It will be financed by the management, working together with investors, state-owned enterprises and possibly other private sector players,” Ingot said.
He did not identify any of the potential investors.
The Pekanbaru municipal authority is forming an integrated team to safeguard the project, and which will be composed of representatives from the municipality the municipal police and the local armed forces.
“The team will be cross-sectoral,” Azwan, who is the Assistant 1 of the City Secretariat was also quoted on the website as saying. The team has already begun to hold meetings to prepare for the project.
The announcement came at the heels of a statement by President Joko Widodo who said earlier this month that the country should strive to stop exporting CPO and instead process it domestically into products for added value.