Consultant urges simplification of trade documents

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)