Trillions of rupiah could be saved with single time zone: Govt

Hatta Rajasa (JP)

The government’s plan to apply a single time zone could bring economic benefits and save the country trillions of rupiah, Coordinating Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa said.

“According to research, with a single time zone the country could cut costs by trillions of rupiah,” he said on Sunday as quoted by tempo.co.

 With the establishment of a single time zone of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) +8, Indonesia would have the same time zone as Singapore and Malaysia.

“If we have the same time zone as our neighboring countries, there would be substantial savings in work hours, traffic and economic activity,” said Hatta.

The government's plan to unite the time zones was revealed two days ago by a spokesman for the Committee for the Expansion and Acceleration of Indonesian Economic Growth (KP3EI), Edib Muslim.

According Edib, the merging of the three time zones - WIB, WITA, and WIT - is necessary to improve national productivity.

"One hour’s difference between the three time zones in Indonesia is not effective," said Edib.

He gave an example. Trade in Jakarta begins at 9:00 a.m. and ends at 5:00 p.m., this means the effective trading time between the western and eastern zones is only four hours.

With GMT +8, Indonesians who are living in eastern and central time can conduct more business with the people in the western region.

"We chose GMT +8 because it was in the middle between the WIB and WIT," he said.(nad)