Govt to simplify licensing

Govt to simplify licensing

The government will evaluate 77 trade licenses in a bid to get input on whether they need to be simplified or wiped out to curb high costs and improve competitiveness on the international market, Minister of Trade Mari E. Pangestu said on Thursday.

"I've thus far identified the 77 trade licenses to be evaluated as to whether they are still needed or not," Mari said after opening the 15th export forum in Jakarta.

She explained that three steps would be taken to deal with the 77 licenses, namely whether they would have to be wiped out as they were no longer needed; be simplified as transparently as possible to back up the businesspeople's activities and be uploaded online to enable the businesspeople to process their documents faster without necessarily going to the ministry's building.

Mari said that the evaluation on the 77 trade licenses would be conducted in response to public complaints about arduous procedures for the processing of the export-import documents.

"We will do our best to give better services for the sake of helping boost non-oil exports through the simplification of the trade licensing," Mari said without giving details on the licenses or documents to be evaluated.

Data at the trade ministry showed that Indonesia's non-oil exports rose by an average of 4.38 percent per annum over the last five years, namely from US$47.8 billion in 2000 to $55.9 billion in 2004.

In the first semester this year the exports reached $31.8 billion, up 30.15 percent from the corresponding period last year, according to the data. -- Antara