Should "Roro Shipping" rev up to Clamp Down on high logistics costs?
Indonesia’s chronical high logistics costs are thoroughly discussed through seminars, workshops but are nevertheless never adequately reseolved. Of course, such platforms are not totally useless: they still produce something of value: a pile of papers with strong data on the country's logistics affairs, gathered from respectable overseas and domestic research institutions. Discussion over the issue has been ongoing for more than two decades, starting during the President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) administration. The 6 th Indonesian president even tried to clamp down the problem, with a more concrete measure, by ordering Deputy Finance Minister Mahendra Siregar to take an office space and go to work at the Port of Tanjung Priok of Jakarta to monitor the apparently uncontrollable logistics cost, 24/7. Not only that: SBY then established a task force and appointed Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Sofyan Djalil to lead it. Up to the final term of the President, logistic