The government on Thursday launched the 15th economic policy package, which is aimed at improving logistics in the country.

Economic Coordinating Minister Darmin Nasution said the package addressed four main aspects – enhancing the role of transportation insurance, reducing costs for logistic service providers, strengthening the Indonesia National Single Window (INSW) authority and reducing the number of prohibited and restricted goods.

"The insurance business is included in this economic package, because [insurance companies] are involved in the shipping of goods, in the shipyard business and in ship maintenance," Darmin said during a press conference at the State Palace in Jakarta on Thursday.

In trying to reduce costs incurred by logistic service providers, the government aims to eliminate costs of sea transportation, shipping agencies, freight forwarding, loading and unloading services as well as port management.

Currently, those business activities incur certain costs, ranging between Rp 2 billion (US$150,568) and Rp 500 billion. Under the new policy package, these costs will be eliminated.

Meanwhile, the details on strengthening the INSW authority and setting up an export-import task force to reduce the list of prohibited and restricted goods would be specified in the 16th and 17th economic packages, Darmin added."We actually wanted to put those four focuses in one package, but that would take too long," he said. (bbn)

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