Jakarta, (ANTARA News) - Rich in marine and natural resources, the islands of Halmahera and Morotai in North Maluku deserve to be developed into industrial centers in East Indonesia . Halmahera is host to under-ground high-grade gold mines and abundant natural resources, and Morotai has plentiful fishery resources. North Maluku provincial administration spokesman Abubakar Abdullah said in Ternate on Wednesday the local government was planning to develop the two islands into industrial centers. He said Halmahera island could be a center of agriculture and mining industry and Morotai island a center of fishery processing industry. Abubkar said mining companies such as PT Aneka Tambang and PT Nusa Halmahera Minieral have been operating in Halmahera for a long time. Besides, according to www.goldenpeaks.com, Golden Peaks Resources Limited (TSX:GL) was now conducting exploration activities for its Roko and Kapa Kapa Projects on Halmahera island. Golden Peaks Resources held the gold exploration rights over the second widest land area on Halmahera island after Newcrest Mining. The company had established an exploration base in the North Halmahera district town of Tobelo with a total of 30 employees, 20 of whom are locals. A base camp is now being constructed at the Akelamo Prospect on the Kapa Kapa project. Initial mapping and sampling will follow a 1-km zone of mineralisation with historical trenching data which includes 4m @ 0.5 g/t Au + 1800 g/t Ag and 4m @ 466 g/t Ag from channel sampling. The historical data includes 10 metres at 6.4 g/t gold, 16 metres at 5.1 g/t gold and 42 metres at 1.1 g/t gold in hand-dug trenches and 10.2m @ 1.4g/t Au from 40.8m depth and 12.9m @ 1.3g/t Au from 48.6m depth from 2 scout diamond drill holes. Especially for Morotai island, Abubakar said the development of industrial center there would be integrated with the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry`s program to make it tuna processing center. The Morotai island waters is huge, consisting of 160 different fish species of significant economic value and of 31 different commercial value, with a volume reaching 148,473.8 tons per year. Therefore general chairman of the Indonesian Industrial Estates Association, under the Indonesian Chamber of Trade and Industry (Kadin) Hendra Lesmana said in Jakarta early this year that the abundant fishery resources made Morotai island to have a high potential for Japanese investment. When receiving Morotai Island Regent Sukemi Sahab and an accompanying team from the North Maluku Crisis Center (MCC) in a safari trip proposing Morotai to become a special economic estate (KEK), Hendra Lesmana said a Japanese company, Marubeni, was very interested in making an investment in Morotai. "Morotai is quite well known in the world, and if its potential natural resources can be promoted with supporting data, it is quite possible that Japan and some other countries would be interested in doing business there," he said. Meanwhile, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Fadel Muhammad has ever said that Morotai island has a great potential of fishery resources and that the island has been offered to investors to invest in seafood processing industry. According to Fadel, Morotai island would also be the center of national tuna processing industry, because Taiwan has expressed interest to invest in the island, located at the Pacific Ocean. Fadel said Morotai was known to have high fisheries potential because the island was a stopover point of tuna from the Pacific Ocean to Indonesian waters. Therefore Abubakar said that the North Maluku provincial government program to turn Morotai and Halmahera into the center of industrial development was fully supported by central government, and has even been put on the concept of national economic development acceleration. He said both domestic and foreign investors had expressed interest to develop Halmahera and Morotai islands into industrial center. According to him, investment value to develop the two islands in North Maluku was estimated to be more than Rp1 trillion. Therefore the local government has taken various concrete steps to support industrial development in the islands of Halmahera and Morotai by constructing basic infrastructure facilities such as Halmahera ring road and Morotai ring road. Abubakar said North Maluku provincial government has expressed hope that all related parties including the local community would support the realization of Halmahera and Morotai as industrial center in East Indonesia. "If the two islands have become the centers of industrial development, it will have a great positive impact on the improvement regional economy and the the local people`s welfare," Abubakar said. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism also plans to promote North Maluku as a potential tourists destination alongside the country`s more established attraction. Promotion official at the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Diah Widiati said in Denpasar, Bali, in May this year that the provinces in eastern Indonesia had the potential to lure a lot of local and foreign tourists if they were promoted properly. "Thus, we are promoting North Maluku in the hope of attracting more tourists," she said, adding that the local government should prepare proper transportation and accommodations to the tourists. (*) image source: culturaltourismobject.com
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