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