In this forever changing and hopefully improving world, Indonesia is going down the avenue of trying to create a healthy and attractive business climate and a friendly tourist environment.
There are many things that can be done to improve and achieve both, one of those being a helpful and cordial immigration experience that for sure will welcome all visitors.
First impressions are often important, but what about the renewal of social visas internally and the procedures necessary to obtain this.
Before I make suggestions, I would like to say that it is appreciated that many people in this country are operating illegally or doing illegal business, and that Indonesia has a difficult job (like many other countries) in controlling this.
That said why not classify certain well-known people who are here on a regular social visa as being of little interest to immigration and thus dealt with in a different way.
At the moment the form-filling exercise is not only repetitive it is also time consuming, both of which could be avoided with a little thought. The forms and information required need to be submitted every month for four months, of which two of those months all forms and information need to be duplicated.
Surely there is a better way of doing this? Not only that, those four months warrant a stamp in the passport and the stamp, which is not very large, is often, if not always put on a separate passport page every month.
There is ample room for two stamps on one page, and when you consider that a new British passport cost nearly Rp 3 million (US$323), why not help us out on this one?
Better still, why not have one large stamp that will cover the four months with enough space for the chief immigration officer to sign four times?
In my 15 years of experience in this country, I have found 99 percent of Indonesians to be friendly and indeed helpful, and so maybe that natural attribute should become the first priority of immigration, which of course would be in line with the national image-building exercise that is currently being projected.
DAVID WALLIS
Medan, North Jakarta
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