Abolishment of fiscal

Abolishment of fiscal

In view of the present development of Indonesia's economy, as
a small-scale exporter, I often feel that the government does not
take into account the opinions of small-scale businesspeople. The
fiscal fee imposed on anybody leaving the country, for example,
is quite burdensome to small-scale businesspeople like myself
because every time I go abroad I have to pay Rp 1 million for the
fiscal fee.

In an effort to empower the people and revive the real sector,
we, small-scale businesspeople, have no other choice but to
export services and commodities to generate foreign exchange
earnings that this country is in dire need of. On the other hand,
we have been hampered by the huge amount of money that we have to
spend. We do not want assistance from the government. What we
need is an opportunity to look for our own market (although, in
fact, assistance from the government is also expected).

Can the government, perhaps, consider providing a cross-
subsidy for the fiscal fee? Unless I am wrong, our national
carrier is having problems with its performance. In this context,
could the government perhaps stipulate that a passenger traveling
on board a Garuda flight be exempt from the fiscal fee? This
would certainly enlarge Garuda Indonesia's market share to
Singapore, Australia, the U.S. and other Asian countries.

Originally, the government introduced this fiscal fee to
prevent an exodus overseas of our citizens. In the present reform
era, however, this decision must be reviewed, as it is not
relevant anymore.

If I may suggest, we should, in order to maintain our
integrity and dignity as an Indonesian nation, impose on non-
ASEAN foreign tourists a visa fee of US$50 to $75 per visit, an
insignificant amount to those whose income is in U.S. dollars.
This visa fee would be a new source of foreign exchange for
Indonesia. Just imagine that there are about three million
foreign visitors a year. The gross foreign exchange earnings from
this source annually would be about $150 million, which is quite
a significant amount. Why must Indonesian citizens pay for visas
every time we go to non-ASEAN countries and why do non-ASEAN
foreign visitors pay nothing for a visa to visit our country?

R. HARRIS SIAGIAN

Jakarta