Apkindo to help govt in marketing

JAKARTA (JP): The Association of Wood Panel Producers (Apkindo) said Saturday that it is ready to cooperate with the government in evaluating the widely-criticized plywood marketing system.

Apkindo's executive chairman, A. Tjipto Wigjoprajitno, said the association is prepared to accept the change in the plywood marketing system as long as the new mechanism benefits its members.

"If the new marketing system does not benefit the association's members, we will not follow the new rule," he said in his response to Trade Minister Satrio B. Joedono's statement on a review of the country's plywood marketing system.

Joedono told members of the House of Representatives in a recent hearing that Indonesia's plywood export system was being evaluated to reinvigorate exports.

The minister said that his office was gathering information and suggestions from all related parties for consideration in developing the most effective mechanism to deal with the decline in plywood exports.

Plywood exports are, under the current market system, solely handled by Apkindo through its trading arms in major plywood importing countries, including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong as well as European and Middle East countries.

The association allows plywood producers to notify only Apkindo's trading arms of the volume and standards of plywood that they have for export. It is the trading arms which are responsible for seeking orders and distributing the orders to producers.

The trading mechanism has been widely criticized by plywood exporters as the assigned trading arms in the overseas markets are, as they charged, not aggressive enough in marketing Indonesian products.

The exporters charged that the association's policy to limit export volume in a bid to raise prices had resulted in the decline in the country's plywood exports last year because, they said, many plywood importers turned to cheaper plywood from Malaysia.

Tjipto said that the fluctuation of plywood prices was in line with the market mechanism and that the drop in the country's foreign exchange earnings from plywood exports was not caused by the plywood marketing system. (hen)