Consultant urges simplification of trade documents

JAKARTA (JP): Export-import procedures are inefficient, lengthy, bureaucratic and involve at least 22 documents to export or import a single item, a consultant says.

R.N. Shivpuri, chairman of the Technical Advisory Group on Trade Facilitation at the Ministry of Trade, said here yesterday that Indonesia should simplify the procedures so that the flow of international trading will be smoother.

Sharing Shivpuri's view, Bakir Hasan, secretary general of the ministry, acknowledged that the inefficient and lengthy bureaucratic procedures result from the differences in trading documents required by various government institutions.

Bakir specified that the inefficient procedural formalities for trading have decreased the country's overseas trade figures by 10 percent, with many of the problems resulting from administrative misunderstandings and squandering.

He said the government will form a special inter-ministerial team, to be chaired by Coordinating Minister for Economy and Finance Saleh Afiff, to study the matter and then standardize all export-import documents.

The project will be funded by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

"It is expected that by the completion of the project, obstacles and bottlenecks affecting the development of the country's international trade will have been removed or reduced," said UNDP's deputy resident representative, Anders O. Frismark.

Meanwhile, Rijanto, chairman of the Research and Development Center at the Directorate of Foreign Trade, noted that Indonesia in the future will implement an electronic data interchange system to facilitate international trading activities.

"If the electronic data interchange is used, businessmen can process export-import documents directly from computers in their own offices," Rijanto said in a workshop on the facilitation of trade procedures and trade documents conducted by the Ministry of Trade, in cooperation with UNDP and UNCTAD.

Such an electronic data interchange has been used by Singapore for seven years and now facilitates almost 95 percent of its total international trading activities.

"It's not expensive. Singapore spent only US$25 million to invest in the system," Rijanto was quoted by Antara as saying.(rid)