JAKARTA: The Trade Ministry has introduced a new regulation on imports requiring all imported goods to have permits before being shipped to Indonesia.
The new regulation, which will come into effect in January next year at the same time as the ASEAN Economic Community kicks off, will replace Regulation No.54/2009 on imports, which only requires importers to have an importer’s identification number (API) in order to import goods.
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“We have tolerated [importers] for too long. Many importers import goods before they obtain a goods permit. They arrange it in Indonesia and it takes days to complete. It makes the port dwelling time for products longer.
“Now we are getting serious about this. With the new regulation, goods cannot be unloaded from containers unless there is a goods permit,” Trade Minister Rachmat Gobel told members of various importers association at a meeting on Friday.
The ministry issued the new regulation after President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo inspected Indonesia’s biggest port Tanjung Priok last month, during which he found that dwelling time at the port was one of the longest in Southeast Asia.
“On average, our current dwelling time is 5.5 days. I want it [improved to] 4.7 days,” Jokowi said recently, adding that even after the change Indonesia would still lag behind neighboring countries, such as Singapore, whose clearance time can be as fast as one day.
