Businesses hail anti-smuggling team

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Business associations hailed the government's plan to set up an interdepartmental antismuggling team to curb rampant smuggling activities in the country, although some doubted whether the team would be effective.

"The team must focus on ensuring that import procedures will be strictly applied by the customs and excise office," director of the Indonesian Textile Association (API) Indra Ibrahim told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

"The team must make sure that high ranking officials in the customs office work properly. This will have a chain effect on subordinates encouraging them to work correctly and stop violating procedures," he added.

Textiles, electronics, footwear, and children's toys are the most badly affected by smuggling activities.

The government decided last week in a Cabinet meeting to set up a powerful team to curb smuggling in the country amid mounting criticism over the impotence of the customs and excise office in tackling such activities.

The government said the team would consist of officials from the customs and excise office, the National Police and relevant state agencies.

The team would have power to impose strict measures on offenders and to crack down on all kinds of smuggling activities.

Executive director of the Indonesian Electronics Producers Association (Gabel) Lee Kang Hyun said the antismuggling team would have a crucial role in suppressing smuggling activities.

Lee urged the team to force the customs and excise office to impose a tight inspection procedure on the import of the four products commonly smuggled.

He added that law enforcement such as punishing smugglers was crucial in a bid to fight smuggling activities.

Meanwhile, secretary-general of the Indonesian Footwear Association (Aprisindo) Djimanto said that the presence of the antismuggling team would be ineffective as long as the government did not revise existing regulations which allowed confiscated smuggled products to enter the domestic market via auction or after the importers paid a fine.

"It (the team) will do little ... It won't solve the problem. The government must change the regulations to really curb smuggling activities," he said.

Djimanto said the government must burn the confiscated smuggled products or reexport them to save domestic products.

Smuggling activities have been particularly rampant in the country over the last five years since the country plunged into a deep economic crisis in 1997.

The rampant smuggling activities are facilitated by collusion between corrupt customs officials and importers.