'Cut levies on pager sales': Executive

'Cut levies on pager sales': Executive

JAKARTA (JP): An executive suggested yesterday that the
government reduce levies on the sales of pagers to promote the
use of such telecommunications equipment in the country.

"The number of radio paging subscribers might increase rapidly
and reach one million by the end of this year if the government
cut levies on pagers," a director of PT Persada Komindo, Pong
Prasetyo, told reporters after the opening of the first two-day
conference of the newly-established Indonesian Association of
Pager Operators.

He said the government targets the number of pager subscribers
to increase to one million by the end of this year from some
300,000 at present.

He explained that levies on the sales of pagers currently
reach 40 percent of their import prices. The levies include value
added tax, luxury tax and import duties.

A pager operator generally buys pagers from suppliers at about
Rp 300,000 (US$135) to Rp 400,000 each.

Pong, who is also committee chairman of the conference, said
that the government can actually cut or even abolish the luxury
tax on pagers.

"If the government has abolished luxury tax on handheld
cellular telephones, why did the government not do the same with
pagers?" he said.

At the conference, a written speech by Minister of Tourism,
Post and Telecommunications Joop Ave said that Indonesia will
always need radio pager operators to help overcome the gap
between supply and demand for telephones.

The state-owned domestic telecommunications company PT Telkom
has thus far installed only some 2.5 million telephone lines
throughout the country.

"Radio pagers are very helpful to cover certain areas which
have no telephone infrastructure," he said.

There are currently 74 radio paging operators in Indonesia,
half of which are located in Jakarta. Of the total operators,
four firms are licensed to operate nationally -- PT
Telematrixindo with its EasyCall, PT SkyTelindo with its Skytel,
PT Duta Pertiwi Santosa with its Starpage and PT Indolink First
Pacific with its Indolink.

The government will soon license four more operators to run
radio paging services nationally, including Starko, Nusa Page,
Telekomindo and Gematel.

The conference is scheduled today to elect the executives of
the new association. (icn)