Government revokes 1,104 import licenses

The Trade Ministry revoked 1,104 import licenses last year because their holders had stopped importing goods, a senior Trade Ministry official says.

Trade Ministry director general for international trade Diah Maulida said the companies would not be able to seek new licenses in the following year unless existing regulations were revised.

“1,104 IT [licenses for importers] have been revoked,” Diah said at her office on Tuesday.

The licenses were revoked because the importers had not imported anything in 2009. The ministry issued around 4,000 import licenses that year.

Under existing regulations, which came into effect on Jan. 1, 2009, controls are imposed on imports of garments, footwear, food and beverages, electronics and children’s toys — to protect the domestic market from smuggled goods.

According to the regulations, imports of goods in these categories may only enter Indonesia through five designated ports, as well as international airports.

The five ports are Belawan in Medan, Tanjung Priok in Jakarta, Tanjung Emas in Semarang (Central Java), Tanjung Perak in Surabaya (East Java), and Soekarno-Hatta in Makassar (South Sulawesi).

For imports of food and beverage products, Dumai Port in Riau has also been made available.
Under the regulations, imports of these designated products through any other ports are illegal.

The trade office is revising the regulation to include more categories of products, and to allow companies whose import licenses have been revoked to apply for new licenses.

Deputy Trade Minister Mahendra Siregar said the Coordinating Economic Ministry was discussing the possibility of including more product categories in the revised regulations.

“[We] are considering including herbal medicine and cosmetics [in the revised regulations],” he said.

Indonesian Footwear Association (Aprisindo) chairman Eddy Widjanarko earlier said the regulation had helped reduce footwear imports by 20 percent from 2008 to 2009.

“The regulation has been quite effective,” Eddy told The Jakarta Post.

Indonesian Textiles Association (API) chairman Benny Soetrisno said the regulation had “a good effect” on the domestic garment industry, although it was still hard to tackle illegal textile imports because of Indonesia’s “numerous” small ports.

Meanwhile, Indonesian Food and Beverage Association (Gapmmi) regulation division chief Franky Sibarani said the enforcement of the regulation went “very well” in the first eight months, and had led to a drop in food and beverage imports of between 30 and 40 percent compared to the same period a year earlier.