TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - President Joko Widodo in June 2015 is scheduled to launch the Mandeh tourist resort in South Pesisir regency, West Sumatra, as a sea park.

National Development Planning Minister Andrinof Chaniago said that initially, the launching was scheduled on Saturday, 16 May 2015 but it was postponed because the President was making preparation for his son’s wedding and attended the wedding of Foreign Affairs Minister’s son on Saturday, 16 May 2015.

"After his son’s wedding in early June, the President will visit West Sumatera to the launch the sea park," the Minister said in West Sumatra on Saturday.

Andrinof added that Mandeh has an extraordinary tourism potential in the west coast of Sumatera. He also said that the region is rich with tourism objects and the government will seriously develop this area by including it into the National Mid-Term Development Plan (RPJMN) 2015-2019.

Situated 56 kilometers to the south of Padang, West Sumatra’s provincial capital, the Mandeh Sea Park — also dubbed the “Raja Ampat of the West” and “The Paradise in the South” — is a bay covering an area of some 18,000 hectares.

The bay is located on the middle of Sumatra Island facing west. Although it directly borders the Indian Ocean, the bay is renowned for its calm seas, thanks to the nine small islands that surround it. It is so calm it looks like a blue lagoon.

ANDRI EL FARUQI