Businessmen worried about SGS replacement

JAKARTA (JP): A German business leader here shares the concern of Indonesian importers about the phasing out of the Swiss Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS) from the customs inspection of imports at points of loading.

German businessmen are apprehensive about how customs inspections will proceed once the SGS contract ends and the inspection authority is again taken over by Indonesia, F. Kleinsteuber, the director of the Indonesian-German Economic Association (Ekonid), said yesterday.

Kleinsteuber, speaking at a news conference held by a visiting delegation from the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, said German businessmen were not sure whether the customs inspections under the Indonesian management would be as efficient as those performed by SGS since 1985.

"We don't know how the new inspection system will work, but we have already experienced the efficiency of the system under the SGS," he added.

The Indonesian government plans to end the job contract of SGS in July 1995 and transfer the full authority for customs inspections to PT Surveyor Indonesia, a surveying company which is 76 percent owned by the finance ministry, 20 percent by SGS and four percent by PT Sucofindo, another state company engaged in quality control and inspections.

PT Surveyor Indonesia began to phase out SGS's involvement in the customs inspection of imports in 1991 and has thus far opened representative offices in 14 major countries of origin for Indonesian imports.

According to the government's plan, 85 percent of Indonesian imports will have been inspected by PT Surveyor Indonesia by July next year. SGS services will be retained only in exporting countries from which imports are relatively small.

Kleinsteuber recounted the bitter experience of a German automobile company in having its imports inspected by the Indonesian company. The inspection was painfully slow, thereby delaying the delivery of spare automobile parts to Indonesia.

"The business world is concerned about the new customs inspection system and this may affect the interest of German investors in the country," he noted.

He said the concern over the new customs inspection system did not apply to German businessmen alone.

"In fact, I am echoing the concern of importers in Indonesia," Kleinsteuber pointed out. (10/vin)