Businessmen worried about SGS replacement
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)