Ports, terminals, train station crowded as millions Indonesian's head home

Over 16 million people in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, return to their homeland for celebrating Islamic festivity on Sept. 10-11, crowding airports, seaports, bus terminals and train stations and triggering traffic jams.

The mass exodus has started from big cities, particularly the country's capital of Jakarta, days ahead of the Eid al-Fitr and will peak at three or two days before the national holiday begins.

Banks will stop operation on Sept. 9-13, bourse on Sept. 8-14 and government and private company offices on Sept. 8 or 9.

But, the central bank will not stop operation of Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) and Scripless Securities Settlement System (SSSS) from Sept. 9 to 13.

The exodus may strengthen pressure on inflation as millions of the people spend for their transport costs and the consumption regularly also rise during the Islamic holy month of Ramadhan which end with the celebration of the Islamic festivity.

Indonesia's inflation climbed to a-16-month high to 6.44 percent in August as the Muslim observe Ramadhan and prepare for the festivity, according to the Statistic Bureau, pushing the central bank to take step of increasing banks primary reserve requirement from 5 percent to 8 percent on Sept. 3.

With the higher consumption in the country with over 238 million population, it is expected to contribute more on economic growth. The central bank refrained from raising rate on Sept. 3 after last increase on August last year to keep the momentum of growth, as president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono targets 6.6 percent growth at the reminder of his term ending 2014.

The number of people returning home land this year rose by about 6.5 percent to 15.5 million people from last year, Spokesman of Transport Ministry Bambang Ervan said.

Most of the hikes of mass exodus occurs at air transport, which registers a 15 percent-rise to 1.9 million people, followed by sea transport and bus, he said.

"Air transport shows a significant increase as it is considered the most effective transport mean in the country," said Ervan.

Indonesia is an archipelago country with over 17,500 islands.

In Senen train station of Jakarta, over 22,000 people were predicted to go to several small cities and villages across Java island. It is the busiest schedules at the station so far.

Most of the passengers go along with their family members carrying goods and belonging as presents for their relatives at the villages.

One of the passengers is Sudratmo Utomo, who along with his wife and three daughters will return home to his village in East Java.

"I have come here since ten o'clock this morning. I don't mind to wait for hours amid the busiest traffic. I do this on the expense that we can meet with our parent at homeland," he said.

Celebrating Islamic festivity in homeland is a tradition in Indonesia, casing a mass exodus annually.

The schedules in bus station, train station, sea ports and airports are the busiest on Wednesday and Thursday. Millions of people also ride motorcycle heading to their relative houses.

The peak of traffic has jammed roads and even some toll roads in Jakarta and West Java as 2.2 million out of 9.6 million Jakarta population are expected to return homeland this week.

Source: Xinhua