ADB provides loan to build roads in Indonesia's remote areas

Asian Development Bank (ADB) director board approved a loan disbursement for Indonesian government worth 1.53 trillion rupiah (about 180 million U.S. dollars) to build roads in remote and border areas, aimed at supporting the inter connectivity in ASEAN region, a statement issued by the ADB said here on Friday. James Lynch, ADB transportation director overseeing ASEAN region said that the loan would be used to finance renovation and new road construction works in southern Java areas and northern Kalimantan, Indonesia's border areas to Malaysia territory. He said that the projects covering 470 kilometers of roads would connect Indonesia's economic transportation corridor in four provinces, including a road connecting Indonesia and Malaysia. "The road renovation on those very important routes would open access to market, investment, job opening and social services for many poor people. This is an essential task to support the distribution of development's benefit in regions across the country," James said in the statement. Roads are the main transportation infrastructure in Indonesia. The demand on such an infrastructure has been rising that makes the government hardly able to cope with even though it had doubled its allocation in the last ten years. The road construction projects are essential to assure Indonesia in attaining two-digit growth rate and distributing the development benefit evenly in its vast territory, the statement said. Besides that purpose, those road construction projects are expected to reduce transportation cost and boost the growth in eastern ASEAN region covering Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Islamic Development Bank also contributes in the projects by providing 65 million dollars. Indonesian government allocates some 135 million dollars in the project that requires a total of 380.5 million dollars of funds, expected to be completed in February 2016.