Indonesian - Batam Island
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Originally Posted by DJ_Archuleta
(Post 21289486)
Batam is one of the 3,000 islands in the Riau Archipelago and is closest to Singapore. It is only 20 km away from Singapore and the ferry ride is about 45 minutes. You can see the tall skyscrapers in Singapore from Batam. Due to the developments in the tourism industry and infrastructure projects, Batam continues to attract tourists and foreign investors. Batam is about two-third the size of Singapore was an island of forests. However, the development of the export processing zone is impressive after years of development by the Indonesian central and local governments. As a model site of the Indonesian export processing zone, Batam has the infrastructure facilitating the export and trade processing bonded zones. All imports of raw materials, equipments and assembled components from Singapore and other foreign countries are exempted from customs duty if the final products are for exports. The environment on the island is pleasant with all kinds of production facilities available. At present, there are investments from Japan and Europe in which many multinational corporations have set-up factories. The industrial planning and policies developments of Batam is the same model as the Shenzhen Industrial Park in China having economic and trading relations with Hong Kong: products assembled in the trade processing bonded zones transported to Singapore, with "Made in Singapore" labels are exempted from customs duty for export to countries such as US market where Singapore and USA has a free trade agreement. This is the unique feature of Batam Island which attracted many foreign investments and many Japanese companies also realized the benefits. The legal working hours of the island is about 40 hours per week with overtime pay for overtime work. The minimum wage is equivalent to 600 RMB per month. The Indonesian government is considering whether to make Batam Island a free trade zone with more preferential policies. In late April 2006, the Singapore and Indonesian governments signed a framework agreement to develop Batam and Bintan into another "Suzhou Industrial Park" and seven new "Special Economic Zones".  |