Govt urged to abolish VAT on books

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Publishers Association has repeated its call for the government to exempt books from the value added tax (VAT).

Rozali Usman, the chairman of the association, said during the opening ceremony of a book exhibition at the Istora Senayan Sports Hall yesterday that a recent conference of the association had made the appeal to the government in order to lower the price of books. Prices are said to be too expensive for average Indonesians.

The 10-day exhibition, which is sponsored by the association, features 150 publishers. The government of Malaysia is also taking part.

Usman said that the government subsidizes only school texts and religious books. All other books are subject to the value added tax.

Although school and religious books comprise 95 percent of book production in Indonesia, Usman argues that the five percent tax is still a great burden.

If the government abolishes the tax on books, their price will decrease about 10 percent, he said.

Meanwhile, Minister of Education and Culture Wardiman Djojonegoro said when opening the exhibition that Indonesians' inclination to read is still very low.

"They should be pushed to read more," he said.

However, he said, for those few who make reading a hobby, the high price will pose no problem.

If a family has a small library at home and buys a book every month, book production will surely increase, Wardiman said.

According to the minister, last year 5,000 titles were published in Indonesia. Wardiman said the number is far from satisfactory.

"About 400 million of music cassettes were sold here last year compared to only 30 million books," he said.

Hasrom bin Haron, president of the Malaysia Book Publishers Association, told The Jakarta Post that the association publishes about 4,000 new titles every year.

He said that reading in Malaysia is improving although the challenge of electronic media is very strong.

Arianto, chairman of the exhibition's organizing committee, said the Publishers' Association has published a monthly catalog for readers. It contains information and book reviews, he said.

Arianto also said the quality of the catalog will be improved and it will include a list of monthly best-sellers. The list will be supplied by Gramedia and Gunung Agung, two book store chains in Indonesia.

The exhibition also features a 11-year-old author, named A. Faris Ardi, who has published two works called Matahari Pun Bersinar Untukku (The Sun Shines for Me) and Kembali ke Sekolah (Back to School). (05)