Merauke is Indonesia’s front line, which directly borders Papua New Guinea. As the easternmost city in Indonesia, Merauke is also famous for its traditional food creations and crafts. Above all, the city has a great potential to explore further, either for the Papua Province itself or other provinces in the Papua Archipelago, such as West Papua.
The government’s hope for the construction of The Sota PLBN in Merauke
The Sota PLBN with an area of 5.6 hectares and an investment value of Rp114.04 billion is the 8th PLBN built on the Indonesian border in 2019. For Papua Province, the Sota PLBN is the second PLBN after the Skouw PLBN in Jayapura. In total, there are three PLBNs in Papua.
Pos Lintas Batas Negara (PLBN) is a reflection of the government’s commitment to developing Indonesia from the border area. With a new face and a better service, PLBN was built as a representation of Indonesia’s progress in the border area.
With the inauguration of the Pos Lintas Batas Negara (PLBN) in Sota, Merauke is a hope for the success of the center of economic growth in the border areas. As a border area, Sota is expected to provide benefits for bordering countries such as Papua New Guinea and other Pacific countries.
The Minister of Home Affairs, Tito, really hopes that this will be successful considering that Merauke is the largest rice granary in Papua. Fifteen thousand tons of rice have been successfully exported to Daru, the capital of the West Province, Papua New Guinea, via the Torasi River Estuary Port. This will continue to grow if it is properly facilitated.
In the border trade sector, the cross-border activities of the Western Province, Papua New Guinea, are around 350 people per month. Even during the pandemic’s last eight months, baggage acquired from the Sota PLBN market dominated daily necessities such as agricultural items, crops, and food, as well as electrical goods and automobile and bicycle replacement parts.
This is proof that the Sota PLBN will become the forerunner of the economic center in the border areas. In addition, the number of needs of the residents of the West Province of Papua New Guinea, which is a neighbor of Indonesia, is very large, reaching 201,000 residents. This can be an opportunity for local residents to increase their business and become suppliers of needs in neighboring countries. The end result is that the people of Merauke and the Papua and West Paua regions will prosper if they can maximize this opportunity.
The purpose of the construction of The Sota PLBN in Merauke
Indonesian President Jokowi said that the border area is Indonesia’s front porch representing the nation’s face, which can make the whole community proud. According to Tito, the building of the Sota PLBN is part of Jokowi’s third nawacita, which aims to develop Indonesia from the periphery by strengthening regions and villages within the framework of a unitary state from 2014 to 2019. In addition, Jokowi is very concerned with development in the 3 T (terdepan, terpencil, tertinggal) areas.
The Minister of Home Affairs, Tito Karnavian, described the 3 main objectives of developing the Sota PLBN in Merauke, Papua Province, namely as a manifestation of the state border area, especially in cross-border which is orderly and safe. The second purpose is to embody the national border area as a new center of economic growth. Finally, the development incorporates the state border area as the state’s front page and home page or as a state window.
Sota is a proud leading Porch City
Deputy II BNPP Ministry of Home Affairs RI, Komjen Pol (P) Drs.Paulus Waterpauw. M.si made a working visit to PLBN Sota, Merauke Regency, Papua, to assess the condition of the Sota market and its development. Waterpauw appreciated the cleanliness of the Sota PLBN, which he thought was extremely good in comparison to other PLBN he had seen. Still, he felt that other areas needed improvement, such as cultural tourism.
The participation of the local community in economic development is considered very good. This is one of the benchmarks where Sota is one of the best. This is proven because local people also want to learn from relatives or friends; things like this make it grow rapidly. In addition, Waterpauw also praised the good synergy between the head of the PLBN administrator and the community.
That is the hope and goal of establishing the Sota PLBN in Merauke, Papua Province. There is no other goal than to build the welfare of Papua and West Papua people and increase the distribution of development in the foremost regions of Indonesia. PLBN is expected to be the epicenter of the development of national border areas, both in the defense and security aspects, the economic aspects, as well as in the social and cultural aspects.
