TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - East Lombok will soon have a new tourism site, a pink-colored beach, in Tanjung Ringgit. The Tanjung Ringgit area was chosen to be developed because of its fully-intact coral reefs and the fact that the area hosts some historical sites of the Second World War.

Swedish investor John Higson through his company Eco Solutions (ESL), is set to build an international environmental village over a 330 acre land that will cost US$426.5 million. "We will only build 10 percent of the land for environmental purposes," said Commissioner of ESL I Gusti Putu Ekadana last Friday.

He said that ESL will build environmental hotels in the Tanjung Ringgit Forest. There will also be an international village that will be occupied by people from Sweden, England, Singapore and New Zealand.

ESL has also been trusted to manage the Gili Baluk tourism site in Poto Tano, West Sumbawa. "An alternative investment model we have prepared focuses on the concept of eco-tourism," Ekadana said while mentioning that a US$853,000 budget has been prepared for the project.

The village will be built on the East Lombok-West Sumbawa-Labuan Bajo triangle region as a new tourism site in Eastern Indonesia.

Lalu Bayu Windia, Chairman of Investment and Integrated Licensing Board of West Nusa Tenggara, confirmed ESL's investment plan last Friday during the groundbreaking event of the Master Plan for the Acceleration of the Expansion of Indonesian Economic Development (MP3EI). "The Tanjung Ringgit region is one of the regions that was included in the groundbreaking [event]," Lalu said.

SUPRIYANTHO KHAFID