REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA - Maritime and Fisheries Minister Sharif Cicip Sutardjo said Indonesia was not yet a maritime country as the country had not met the criteria of a maritime country. He said that inter-island connectivity was not yet functioning, infrastructure was not yet ready, even the law on maritime was expected to be ready only in September.

Indonesia is the world's largest archipelago with sea territory reaching 5.8 million square meters including 3.1 million kilometers of territorial waters and 2.7 million square meters of exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and consisting of 17,508 islands and coat lines of 104,000 kilometers. Sutardjo said Indonesia had not yet comprehensively thought about facilities and infrastructure to back up a maritime country. He said a maritime country relied fully on sea resources to develop its economy, trade and other activities.

"In principle a maritime country is is one that could fully exploit and utilize its sea resources and potentials while observing conservation of the sea and the sea environment," Sutardjo said.

He cited China, Thailand , Vietnam, Japan, Canada and the Netherlands as examples of maritime countries. "They have no wide seas but they could fully utilize their sea resources to be the largest contributor to their GDP," he said.

Indonesia had yet a long way to go to reach the level of a maritime country, he added. The maritime issue has made headlines after the president elect Joko Widodo pledges in his pre election campaign to make Indonesia the center of world maritime.

Joko Widodo said he would build a "sea toll" to link the backward eastern part of the country with the more advanced western regions. The sea toll would help create equitable economic development, he said. 

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