harbor

_introduction
Pak Faisal Ridwan introduced us to another Acehnese engineer: Subhan Muhammad, who is currently developing strategies for a possible role for Aceh in the global shipping market, as his PhD research at a Malaysian university. This text attempts to summarize our interactions with Subhan.

(the Dutch harbor at Pulau Weh - image: http://www.group.abnamro.com/about/history/themes/history/sabang2.cfm)

_interview
When talking with Faisal about the regional planning and the possible future scenarios for Aceh, he asked us if he could introduce us to a friend of his; Subhan Muhammad. Subhan had asked him if we would be willing to be interviewed by him on the construction of an Acehnese big scale shipping harbor as a potential future scenario. We agreed to meet at the UNDP office in Banda, the 14th of May 2009. Subhan and Michiel sat down to talk for about an hour.

One of the main reasons Subhan requested this interview, was his desire to be able to test his lines of thought on the topic in an open discussion with foreign educated spatial planners, him feeling restrained by the feedback he receives from local (more politically restricted) conversation partners. Our team’s origin in the Netherlands, with Rotterdam harbor as part of its everyday knowledge, he considered a possible added value to the conversation.

Michiel explained the potential he recognizes in Aceh: “The province obviously has a rather poor populace, with a quite modest level of education, wages are low (minimum wage is around 1 million Indonesian Rupiah a month, say one hundred US $ a month) and the unemployment rate is rather high. Unemployment will even rise significantly the coming period with the departure of the many tsunami reconstruction agencies. Despite the grim circumstances this depicts, it also illustrates the presence of a large and growing potential; being a vast and cheap labor force. Exactly the thing you would need when constructing and operating a global scale shipping harbor. So both short term and long term livelihood possibilities will arise when developing a harbor.

(the SS Sumatra at Sabang harbor - image: http://www.group.abnamro.com/about/history/themes/history/sabang.cfm)

Secondly the city of Banda Aceh is historically seen one of the key geographical positions in the world, especially in shipping. Through the centuries it has functioned as the seafaring doorway (‘Banda’ literally meaning doorway) to the endless natural resources of Indonesia and the Malacca Strait leading to the destinations further to the East. Frequented by Arab, Chinese, Portuguese, British, Dutch, and Japanese traders and occupation forces, the many shipping routes passing by its doorstep led to great wealth in the city during the 17th century and the spread of Islam into Asia. Singapore nowadays owes its prosperity to its fairly similar setting. Earlier on in time the Dutch had recognized the strategic naval position of Banda Aceh, and because of it constructed a supply base and harbor on one of the small islands right off the coast of Banda Aceh early 20th century. Unfortunately the outbreak of World War II and the Japanese invasion of Indonesia brought massive destruction there and hindered any future larger scale shipping developments for Banda Aceh.

With this historical chain of events underlining the strategic naval potential of this location, a third argument speaking for the development of a harbor is that the timing for considering massive harbor developments might just be perfect. The tsunami redevelopment period has left Aceh’s governance in a rather strong financial position, allowing them to speculate on ambitious big scale interventions like the construction of a global shipping harbor. As an added bonus the tsunami recovery also brought peace to Aceh, and a high influx of foreign organizations. This enabled the world to develop a much more sophisticated look into Aceh, which through the previous decades of armed conflict had known virtually no foreign involvement. So now the door to the world is open, it should be much easier to get foreign parties interested in developing a global scale shipping harbor. Sumatra itself offers a range of natural resources, which might find their way to world markets much easier from its geographically well positioned most Northern tip.

An immediate threat to the functionality of a harbor in Aceh, is the infrastructural connection with the hinterland. Aceh has just a very basic road structure connecting it to the rest of Sumatra, leading straight through the city of Banda Aceh itself, and there are neither mayor waterways nor rail systems. So as is, there is no bulk goods transport possible from the land to the harbor and vice versa. Either the costly construction of such a specialized cargo infrastructure would have to be incorporated in the development of a harbor, or, the harbor should be able to sustain itself without actually exchanging cargo with Aceh. The latter implies making the harbor to just operate on cargo transfer and refueling, losing the economical benefit of export trade for Sumatra. When discussing where to position the harbor in Aceh, it might be beneficial to locate the harbor close to where the labor force is, so no large personnel movements, consuming time and energy, are needed. ‘Next to or in Banda Aceh’ would be the logical answer from this perspective.

Aside from the transportation over land, a second threat might be the accessibility of the waterways leading to Aceh. If there is no passage from West to East allowing the present day bulk cargo carriers, with their 20+ meters depth, to pass, it is rather likely they will seek different shipping routes, ignoring Aceh.

(the harbor area of Banda Aceh right after the 2004 tsunami - image: http://www.bricoleurbanism.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/banda_aceh_after.jpg)

With the 2004 tsunami still fresh in our minds, we realize Aceh might be heading for another mayor natural event, like an earthquake or even another tsunami. How likely is an event like that to reoccur in Aceh? How well can a newly developed harbor be protected from a future catastrophe, and how far will the investments needed for these measures leave the development of the harbor feasible?

Aside from accomplishing the complex development of a global scale harbor, its operational existence should also be looked at. Maintenance, staff, room for new investments in equipment, you name it. Shipping is an expensive business. How is the global bulk cargo shipping market evolving? Increasing? Decreasing? What are the future prognoses? Will Aceh harbor be able to pay its bills? Will Aceh even be able to compete with its nearby rivals like Medan, or shipping titans like Singapore? If Aceh in the end can offer its cargo services cheaper than the others in that market can, the answer to these last two questions may just be yes.”