Indonesia is planning to cut port charges in order to revert a sharp fall in the number of cruise ship calls, government ministers said, according to the Jakarta Post newspaper.

“We’ll readjust the port fees with Singapore as the benchmark. We’ll issue regulations and adopt the National Cruise Tourism Strategy to prevent such a problem from happening again in the future,” Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, was quoted by Jakarta Post as saying.

Tourism Minister Arief Yahya and Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumad the number of cruise calls in Indonesia had decreased from 400 in 2015 to 350 calls in 2016. However, the number of passengers had increased from 200,000 in 2015 to 260,000 in 2016. “That shows that the cruise ships coming to Indonesia have increased in size,” he added.

“We’re going to build a cruise terminal that meets international standards in Benoa. That is part of the preparations for the IMF – World Bank Annual Meeting in October 2018, which will be attended by 13,000-18,000 people from 189 countries,” Luhut added.