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ollowing a multistakeholder internal discussion the government has agreed to simplify the procedures for the mandatory local timber legality verification system (SVLK) starting next year.

The Trade Ministry'€™s director of agriculture and forestry product exports Nurlaila said Friday that the decision was made because SMEs could not afford to pay high certification costs, which could reach
Rp 30 million (US$2,457).

With the shorter procedures, the government would require SME owners to put supply-conformity self-declarations (DKP) on overseas shipments, for which issuance was free of charge, according to Nurlaila.

These declarations normally comprise information such as the four-digit commodity identification code, volume of timber products, type of timber and sources of timber supplies to ensure their legality.

'€œWe'€™re trying to address complaints from businesses that the certification process is complicated and expensive. The government understands all the difficulties they have to deal with and wants to facilitate their exports,'€ she told reporters at her office.

Once the world'€™s biggest illegal timber hotspot, Indonesia has tried hard to ensure the legality of its traded timber and timber products to its buyers. In 2010 it made the legality certification scheme mandatory, except for SMEs.

The effort has paid off since its major buyer, the EU, has finally acknowledged that legally certified timber and its products from Indonesia comply with the group'€™s timber regulation, thereby exempting Indonesian timber from due diligence upon entering European ports.

The mandatory scheme was scheduled to apply to SMEs early 2014, but thousands of SMEs were unprepared causing delays and rescheduling until early 2015.

However, inching near the deadline, the Indonesia Rattan Furniture and Craft Association (AMKRI), as the representative of the SMEs, lobbied the government for exemption, which it claimed would be
necessary to help achieve the country'€™s target to triple furniture and craft exports to $5 billion in the next four years.

Only 637 firms out of 3,500 SMEs producing timber and timber products were certified as of the beginning of this year, according to statistics from AMKRI referenced earlier by the Trade Ministry.

Other assistance from the government would come by way of financial aids for SMEs, which were ready to be legally certified in groups, Nurlaila further said. The aids, sourced from the state budget, would be channeled by the Environment and Forestry Ministry, she added.

'€œWe will also soon talk with buyer countries to explain the supply-conformity self-declarations with the hope they can accept it like SVLK,'€ Nurlaila said.

The furniture and handicraft industry is labor intensive and it creates 2.1 million jobs nationwide, with more than 500,000 for artisans.

From January to August, exports of furniture, along with pulp and paper, settled at $6.13 billion, accounting for 6.34 percent of overall non-oil and gas exports.