"Pact would create cargo link between MidAmerica airport and Indonesia"

Friday, March 9, 2007

Pact would create cargo link between MidAmerica airport and Indonesia
By Terry Hillig
The St. Louis (MO) Post-Dispatch


An agreement that would build an "air bridge" between Indonesia and
MidAmerica Airport was expected to be signed early today. 

St. Clair County Board Chairman Mark Kern and the airport's director, Tim
Cantwell, were in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, to sign the agreement.
The signing was to be held at 5 a.m. St. Louis time today.

The arrangement is an apparent breakthrough in county officials' efforts to
bring air cargo business to MidAmerica.

"This is an important agreement that will have significant impact on St.
Clair County," Kern said in a news release issued Thursday. "We have been
working on this since the airport's air cargo facility was built two years
ago. It will bring jobs as well as new businesses to St. Clair County, and
it opens a new market for Indonesian companies to distribute their goods in
the U.S."

Just how many jobs was unclear, however.

Kern said the agreement would open "a new era of trade" with one of Asia's
fastest growing manufacturing, distribution and cargo centers.

Parties to the agreement are the county; the Batam Industrial Development
Authority, which manages Hang Nading International Airport; Oregon-based
Evergreen International Airlines; and Cardig International, an aviation
services provider based in Indonesia. Batam is an island in Indonesia's Riau
Islands province.

MidAmerica's 50,000-square-foot cargo terminal and adjacent six-acre ramp
were completed in 2005. Missouri-based Trade Zone Partners LLC leased about
half the $7 million terminal in September.

Airport spokesman Jim Grandone said the agreement was the apparent outgrowth
of a visit to MidAmerica last summer by Ismeth Abdullah, governor of the
Riau Islands province, and other Indonesian officials on a trade mission to
the St. Louis area.

The St. Clair County-owned airport has not attracted the level of passenger
service expected by county leaders when it opened nine years ago. MidAmerica
is operated as a "joint-use" airport with Scott Air Force Base.

The airport is a federally designated foreign trade zone and port of entry.

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