CA for CA: Indonesia Bans Sand Exports

Land sand for export

The Situation and reason
Oh...so Indonesia has banned land sand exports. I don't know if Singapore was prepared for this, but this came as a sudden thing to those who only read the newspaper (which is quite a lot for kids like us these days). However it has hit the republic island quite hard, considering that most of the sand which comes here is from Indonesia, after Malaysia banned the same thing in 1997. Note that people think that land sand is used for reclaiming, but in fact it is used for producing cement, essential in the construction industry. Indonesia has banned the sand due to environmental reasons and to protect Indonesia's borders. However it is stated that much of the sand mining is done inland, and is unlikely to affect outlying islands and Indonesia's borders.

Effects on the 'little red dot'
As stated earlier, lots of sand used here comes from Indonesia, and by this ban, will have an impact on the construction industry. However the government and BCA (Building and Construction Authority) states that the impact will not be significant, and won't really slow down the construction sector, in which they can use sand from their reserves. The fact is that at this time, major works are happening in Singapore, the building of not one, but two IRs (Integrated Resorts), the MRT Circle Line, Marina Barrage, and lots more. It would be difficult to say that we would not face problems in the coming future.

Solutions
What Singapore will have to do when her reserves run out is to import land sand for concrete from other countries further away around the region, and there will undoubtedly be higher costs. Eventually, the higher costs will have an effect on the people and consumers (that means US) will have to pay for this increase in costs when they buy or use facilities. What we can also do is to use sustainable construction methods to build buildings and stuff, and the BCA states that it will cut consumption of sand by 60 to 70 percent.

The ban takes effect on the 25th of February 2007 and gives exporters us to 5th February 2007 (today) to honour it's existing sand export contracts.

Reflections


Indonesia

I felt that this ban by Indonesia was something that would be expected someday or another, and it just happened today. Indonesia's decision to ban the export totally at one go was in my opinion, a little too sudden. What I think they should have done was to inform on the ban a few months before to give the countries which obtain the sand from them to find other sources before the ban kicked into place, or maybe they could have phrased out the ban, which will allow countries importing the sand to deal with the situation slowly and gradually, and eventually have time to come up with ways to solve this problem. However you have to look at Indonesia's situation and know that they are losing lots of sand and they need to protect their borders. There is also environmental issues, where animals will lose their habitat and erosion will speed up, thus causing more land to be lost.

Singapore
I thought that even though the ban came as quite a shock to the countries that import sand from Indonesia, especially Singapore who imports most of its sand from there, the BCA (Building Construction Authority) has done quite well in preparing and foreseeing this might happen by having lots of sand in our reserves and having other sources around the region where we can import sand from. The government has also done quite a good job by providing subsidies and cheaper rates to those contractors and building companies which have been affected by the shortage of sand and the price hike. However, I think that this can only be a short-term solution because eventually, we either switch to sustainable construction methods which do not use sand or look for other countries around the region for sand to import, and this will certainly increase costs eventually and thus the people who will pay more will be the consumers too, us.

Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/254450/1/.html