Transmigration, which has played an integral role in the success of Indonesia’s First 25-Year Development Plan, is an essential element in the second plan adopted in 1993.

With Sumatra now sustaining a population sufficient to generate jobs and contribute to that island’s economic growth, attention is shifting to the vast lands in Indonesia’s eastern region particularly Irian Jaya. Development in that island’s western portion near the long-established cities of Manokwari, Fak Fak, and Sorong already centers that support mining, petroleum exploration, fishing and timber crops has been hampered by the lack of manpower. This inability to expand economically hurts the local population because it deprives them of jobs. It is a particular problem for the growing number of young, educated Irianese.

Greater emphasis throughout the transmigration program is now placed on diversification and on offering facilities and incentives to businesspeople and entrepreneurs in an effort to encourage private investment in small-scale industries on the less-developed islands to speed their economic development and create more jobs. An industrial base on these less- populated, outer islands not only will contribute to Indonesia’s overall economic growth, but will provide the higher-skilled and higher-paying jobs that are required to keep the growing number of educated young people from leaving the outer islands and moving to Java and exacerbating the severely over-populated conditions there.