Govt gets Rp 26b in taxes for tourism promotion

Govt gets Rp 26b in taxes for tourism promotion

JAKARTA (JP): The government has collected Rp 26.47 billion in development taxes, which will be used to finance the country's tourism industry, Minister of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications Joop Ave says.

He said yesterday that by the end of last month, a number of local administrations had reported the results of their collections of the development tax from hotels and restaurants.

Based on Presidential Decree No. 6/1993, the government requires the 10 most visited provinces -- North and West Sumatra, Jakarta, West, Central and East Java, Yogyakarta, Bali, North and South Sulawesi -- to pass on two percent of the funds collected from development tax to the Ministry of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications. The funds will then be channeled to the Indonesian Tourism Promotion Board for tourism promotion.

The country needs millions of dollars for the promotion of its tourism industry. More than six million foreign visitors are expected to visit Indonesia annually by 1998. The number of tourist arrivals in Indonesia reached more than four million last year, bringing more than US$4.7 billion in foreign exchange.

A report from the research and development office of the ministry showed last month that the government collected just Rp 75 million in development taxes in 1994, out of Rp 45 billion targeted.

Joop corrected the numbers and said that the total funds collected from the tax actually reached Rp 26.47 billion, slightly exceeding Rp 25 billion, which, he added, was the actual target set by the government. (icn)