The Balikpapan-Samarinda toll road on the eastern coast line on the island of Kalimantan (in the province of East Kalimantan) will be extended to include the city of Bontang. During a visit to Balikpapan at the start of the week, Indonesian President Joko Widodo confirmed the extension plan. It implies that the project will more than double in length. The distance between Balikpapan and Samarinda is around 99 kilometers. However, from Samarinda further northeastwards to Bontang stretches across 116 kilometers.

Read more ›

In its bid to enhance connectivity across the Indonesian archipelago, the government of Indonesia is eager to boost toll road development. Enhanced connectivity is key to curtail the nation's high logistics costs hence improving the competitiveness of domestic businesses while also making the investment climate more attractive. Besides business interests, enhanced infrastructure development is also important from a social point of view (for example, people's access to healthcare is improved). In this column we take a look at the developments of the Balikpapan-Samarinda toll road on the island of Kalimantan.

Read more ›

The government of Indonesia plans to tender four projects to the private sector through the public-private partnership (PPP) scheme. The projects are the Balikpapan-Samarinda toll road, the Manado-Bitung toll road, a drinking water supply in Semarang, and the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport Railway. Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Economics Sofyan Djalil said that three out of the four projects, all considered priority projects by the government, are to be offered to the private sector at the end of 2015.

Read more ›

One of the toll roads that is high on the Indonesian government's priority list is the Balikpapan-Samarinda toll road in East Kalimantan. The project is part of the government's quest to boost infrastructure development, thus reduce the nation's high logistics costs and make local businesses more competitive. However, as with every big infrastructure project in Southeast Asia's largest economy, there are bottlenecks that have caused a significant delay.

Read more ›