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The 9 th 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, 15 th 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 9 th 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 S upport to the Growth Centres of the Economic Corridors” is both timely and appropriate. Timely becaus e ASEAN in general , and Indonesia in particular, is undergoing a massive economic transformation on the back a devastating world economic downturn. And studies have repeatedly shown that infrastructure spe nding has consistently sh own positive effects on long te rm economic growth. Appropriate because, history has g iven us a lesson that , interconnectivi ty within the ec onomic 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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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