A bid to abolish two of Indonesia's current three time zones in 2012 has been postponed. A proposal by the Indonesian Economic Development Committee (KP3EI) to observe Central Indonesian Time (WITA) throughout the Southeast Asian country has so far received mainly positive response from economists, politicians and the media, but the proposal has yet to arrive on the president’s desk.
The bid is to unify the whole of Indonesia into one time zone with a UTC offset of +8 hours.
Luky Eko Wuryanto, deputy for infrastructure and regional development at the Coordinating Ministry for the Economy, says to the Jakarta Globe “I don’t think that the time unification will be implemented this year”.
Harmonizing business hours
The switch would not only harmonize local times in the archipelago, which consists of some 18,000 islands and currently divided by three time zones. It would also put Indonesia into the same time zone as some of the country's most important trading partners like China, Singapore, Western Australia and the Philippines.Indonesia: Calls to create single time zone
Time in Indonesia
Indonesia is divided into three time zones: The western part of the country, which includes the populous island of Java and the capital Jakarta, observes Western Indonesian Time (UTC +7 hours). The central region uses Central Indonesian Time (UTC +8 hours), and the islands furthest to the east run on Eastern Indonesian Time (UTC +9 hours). Indonesia does not use daylight saving time (DST).
See time zones worldwide on our interactive Time Zone Map!