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8/2/2019 Strengthening Regional Infrastructure Network
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The 9th
National Conference on Road Engineering
Speech by Dato Sri Dr Ir Judin Abdul Karim, the President of Road Engineering of Asia &
Australia (REAAA) at the plenary session of the main working paper : Strengthening Regional
Economic Development through strengthening Regional Connectivity
Jakarta, 15th
November 2011
___________________________________________________________________________
His Excellency, Dr A Hermanto Dardak, Vice Minister of Public Works, President of IRDA
Ir Soehartono, Chairman of Sector I, NMB-IRDA, Chairman of the 9th
NCRE Organizing
Committee
Ir Djoko Murjanto, Director General of Highways, Ministry of Public Works
Drs Suroyo Alimoeso, Director General of Land Transport, Minister of Communication, IRDA
Central Board of Governors
Fellow REAAA Committee members
Distinguished Speakers, Guests and Participants
Ladies and Gentlemen
Assalamualikum wrb and a very good morning
It is indeed a great pleasure to have the opportunity to address the distinguished audience
in this superbly organized conference in this beautiful city of Jakarta. Today’s conference
with the theme “Road Infrastructure Support to the Growth Centres of the Economic
Corridors” is both timely and appropriate. Timely because ASEAN in general, and Indonesia
in particular, is undergoing a massive economic transformation on the back a devastatingworld economic downturn. And studies have repeatedly shown that infrastructure spending
has consistently shown positive effects on long term economic growth. Appropriate
because, history has given us a lesson that , interconnectivity within the economic corridors
is fundamental to sustaining the performance of these corridors.
Malaysia’s own experience in the success of its pioneer economic corridor, the Multimedia
Super Corridor has inspired the establishment of five other corridors. These are Iskandar
Malaysia (IM), East Coast Economic Region (ECER), Northern Corridor Economic Region
(NCER), Sabah Development Corridor (SDC) and Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy
(SCORE). The Malaysia Super Corridor in Cyberjaya, a high Technology Information
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Technology Park, modelled along the Silicon Valley is so successful at generating the
economic activities, the areas around Cyberjaya, Dengkil, Sri Kembangan and Putrajaya are
experiencing similarly enhanced economic activities. In fact, the success of Cyberjaya
Multimedia Super Corridor has sparked the creation of Information Technology Hub called
Cyberabad in Hyderabad, India
Ladies and Gentlemen
Coming back to the topic of my presentation this morning, it is evident that regional
economic development will require enhanced regional connectivity. In the face of mounting
challenges of liberalization, the only possible route to regional economic advancement is
through regional economic integration. That, ladies and gentlemen brings us to the
imminent manifestation of the regional economic integration known as ASEAN EconomicCommunity. The establishment of ASEAN Economic Community has been accelerated and
will now become a reality in the year 2015, less than four years away. As you are probably
aware, major goals of AEC include achieving enhanced regional cooperation and enhanced
global competitiveness. Both these goals are to be realised through stronger regional
production networks, enhanced rules and good governance and enhanced connection to
the economic centres. At the same time, there is an equally important agenda of narrowing
the development gaps among ASEAN countries. For instance, there are gaps in the
percentage of paved roads over all roads across ASEAN countries.
The AEC goals are truly challenging. It is now becoming more urgent for ASEAN to develop
connected infrastructure in order to accelerate physical connectivity. An improved and
integrated transport and logistics system is an integral part of regional integration
initiatives. Incidentally, transportation and logistics is only one aspect of physical
connectivity. When we talk about ASEAN connectivity, we need to look at other modes as
connectivity as well.
Generally, it has been universally accepted that there are three kinds of connectivity; People
to People Connectivity, Physical Connectivity and Institutional Connectivity. People to
People connectivity are mainly concerned with enhancing and collaborating for tourism,
education and culture. Institutional Connectivity will discuss issues on liberalization, custom
and immigration integration, Mutual Recognition Agreement, structured capacity and
capability building among others. Physical Connectivity is where we start putting all the
infrastructures on the ground. These include transportation infrastructure comprising of
land, air and sea transportation, energy infrastructure, ICT as well as communication
infrastructure. Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, if we are serious in enhancing our regional
connectivity, all three modes of connectivity need to be addressed. Of course, since most of
us here are professionals and stakeholders connected to the road and transport
infrastructure, I will focus our discussion on transport in general and roads in particular. All
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the same, references to other modes of connectivity will be highlighted when the need
arise.
Ladies and Gentlemen
Malaysia’s experience has proven again and again that connected transport infrastructure is
crucial in facilitating trade and investment that will contribute to economic development
and poverty reduction. The first thing the government did when the Cyberjaya MSC was first
envisioned was to develop a comprehensive transportation network linking Cyberjaya with
both the airports and seaports. Linkages with business and financial centres of Kuala Lumpur
and production centres like other Technology and Industrial parks were also enhanced.
Similar infrastructure facilities are also being made available in the five corridors which are
currently being developed.
Moving on to inter-country connectivity, physical connectivity through cross border
infrastructure development is crucial for enhanced regional cooperation and economic
integration and allows the production and exchange of goods and services. Cross border
infrastructure provides countries with greater access to regional production centres and
markets, promotes efficient production, trade competitiveness and trade flows through
access to regional production network and supply chains. We need to build the bridges that
will link ASEAN with the vast market of economic powerhouse, China and India. With ASEAN
population of over 600 million people and China’s 1.34 billion and India’s 1.0 billion, the
opportunity for enhanced trade and the resulting economic advancement can only be
described as colossal. By extending the reach of regional connectivity to access the larger
markets in China and India, not only trade will be enhanced but the cost of doing business
with these two large markets can be reduced quite significantly. Chine is currently the
second biggest economy after the USA and India is on course to become the fourth biggest
after USA, China and Japan. With markets as big as these, ASEAN stands to become the
biggest beneficiaries from the economic growth of China and India.
Ladies and Gentlemen
Connectivity within ASEAN and its regional economic powerhouse is key to ASEAN economic
enhancement. This is where the ASEAN Highway Network (AHN) plays its biggest role. AHN,
as you all know quite well already, is an extension of Trans-Asian Highway which started off
as Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) initiatives. It is part of pan-Asian infrastructure
initiative that we called the Asian Land Transport Infrastructure Development (ALTID).
Altogether, it has 23 designated roads and a total length of more than 38,400 km. It aims to
establish efficient, integrated, safe and environmentally sustainable regional land transportcorridors linking ASEAN member states and beyond. I am happy to note works on AHT is
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progressing well and the first hurdle of network configuration and designation of national
routes have already been completed
On-going is the upgrading of all designated routes to at least Class III standards, construction
of all the missing links (mainly in Myanmar) and operationalization of all cross-border
points. Efforts will also include the upgrading of Transit Transport Routes (TTR) and the
installation of common road signs in all designated routes. I would like to urge all of us here
who are professional and practitioners in this area, to contribute in whatever way that we
can to see the success of AHN. I firmly believe that success of ASEAN Economic Community
goals will rely heavily on the successful completion of the ASEAN Highway Network
Apart from the AHN described earlier, we must also collaborate to see the success of other
physical infrastructure initiatives. These will include
1. Singapore – Kunming Rail Link, a 7,000 km rail network to link major ASEAN citiesand the People Republic of China
2. Integrated Inland waterways Network and competitive maritime transport system
3. ASEAN power grid and Trans-ASEAN Gas Pipeline
4. E-ASEAN Agreement for telecommunication and IT regional cooperation
I am not going to go into details in these infrastructure, suffice to say that they are all
designed to enhance our regional connectivity with the aim of enhancing regional economic
prosperity.
Ladies and Gentlemen
OF course, in this world nothing is gained without the need to address and overcoming the
current and future issues and challenges that we are likely to face. The biggest challenge will
of course be how to finance the massive infrastructure development. Infrastructure
development, by its nature, is expensive and securing favourable terms loans from financial
institutions will prove challenging. Malaysia has successfully develop a public private
partnership(PPP) in delivering the much needed infrastructure development. Most of the
trunk highways connecting economic growth centres are financed and built by the private
sectors. Some of the power projects and telecommunication facilities are built with heavy
participation by the public sector. Other ASEAN states could similarly benefit from working
in close partnership with the private sectors to deliver the needed infrastructure.
Another major concern will be the grave possibility that we do not put in place, adequate
safeguard to protect against the possible negative social and environmental impacts on an
international highway once these facilities are put in place. These could include the
trafficking of women and children, illicit drugs and weapons and trades in illegal wildlife. Of
course, I am sure that these issues and concerns would have been addressed by the
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respective parties and governments and we should be able to deal with the problem
effectively together in close collaboration and partnership.
Ladies and Gentlemen
Once again, I must emphasize that ASEAN has improved its ability to respond to the
challenge of regional integration and globalization. Regional integration has enabled
countries in the region to overcome their capacity constraints and specialize on specific
activities where they have the cost advantage. We have seen that in order to achieve an
economically integrated ASEAN Economic Community, the region current and future
demand for infrastructure must be met. There is now a real need to build and sustain ASEAN
regional infrastructure initiatives on a shared strategic vision with strong commitment of all
participating economies and regional neighbouring countries. On that basis , we would alsolike to see better coordination of sub-regional initiatives such as GMS (Greater Mekong Sub
region), BIMB-EAGA (Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines – East Asia Growth Area)
and IMT – GT (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand – Growth Triangle). It cannot be
overemphasized that the success of the regional economic transformation will be driven
largely by our collaborative effort to enhance our regional connectivity and regional
integration and we, as professionals should play more meaningful roles in helping to achieve
the level of connectivity needed to take regional prosperity to greater heights.
Thank you