JAKARTA -- The Indonesian Parliament has ratified a law that will allow some 1,000 small islands off Riau on Sumatra island to become the country's 31st province, an official said Wednesday.

"The draft bill on the Riau islands was passed by a plenary Tuesday," said Ndang Pariyono from the Parliament's Public Relations Office.

The draft bill was passed with the approval of all nine factions in twhe Parliament, Pariyono said AFP.

It was initiated by the National Parliament despite opposition from the governor and the Provincial Parliament in Riau, a resource rich province in the central part of Sumatra island.

The islands are 1,062 mostly small islands spread over a 251,810-square-kilometer (100,724-square-mile) area spanning from the eastern coast of the western Province of Riau to the southern part of the south China sea.

The inauguration of the new province will have to wait until all the details are settled, Pariyono said, declining further details.

The islands, which currently make up a district of Riau, have a population of some 850,000 people.

The new province will be split into three districts and one municipality.

It will include the Island of Batam just south of Singapore which the government is developing as an industrial and bonded warehouse zone.

The city of Batam on the island of the same name has been proposed as the capital of the new province.

Indonesia currently has 30 provinces, three of them set up since the fall of former President Suharto in 1998.