JAKARTA: Indonesia is considering merging its three different time zones to increase the nation’s economic competitiveness and bureaucratic efficiency.
The nation lies in three time zones, GMT+7, GMT+8 and GMT+9.
Under the government’s so-called “GMT+8 Program”, the nation would group the entire archipelago — from Sabang to Merauke, as the phrase goes — in the GMT+8 time zone.
“GMT+8 would be the nation’s base for time,” the spokesman for the Committee for the Expansion and Acceleration of Indonesian Economic Growth (KP3EI), Edib Muslim, told a group in Bogor, West Java, on Saturday as quoted by antaranews.com.
Edib said that three time zones had decreased the nation’s productivity, as business people in Aceh, which uses GMT+7, might lose a few hours to interact with their peers in Papua, which uses GMT+9 area, during regular working hours.