Incentives offered to concessionaires with sustainable management
Incentives offered to concessionaires with sustainable management
JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Forestry Djamaloedin
Soeryohadikoesoemo is offering incentives to attract forest
concessionaires so that they manage their concessions in
sustainable ways to guarantee preservation.
"Concessionaires which manage forests sustainably will receive
a recommendation to generate funds through the capital market as
well as an export certificate from the Indonesian Ecolabelling
Institute (LBI) to support their exports," Djamaloedin told
reporters here yesterday after opening a meeting of the
Indonesian Wood Panel Association (Apkindo).
He said a recommendation to go public will be given to a
company as soon as it can prove that it has fulfilled all the
requirements for sustainable management.
A recommendation from the Minister of Forestry is required by
a forest concessionaire before entering a stock exchange. The
ministry has held up a recommendation for PT Artika Optima Inti
(AOI), a wood-based panel board manufacturer affiliated with the
Djajanti Group, to enter the stock exchange because it failed to
fulfill its forest concession obligations in Irian Jaya.
AOI, which processes wood on Seram Island, Maluku, for
example, has not met a requirement to build a wood processing
plant in Irian Jaya, where it cuts most of its logs.
Up until now, there are only two wood-based companies listed
on the stock market. PT Barito Pacific, a company controlled by
businessmen Prajogo Pangestu, is listed on the Jakarta and
Surabaya stock exchanges and its subsidiary, PT Sumalindo Lestari
Jaya, is listed on the Jakarta stock exchange.
Supply
Djamaloedin said that to guarantee the continuous supply of
raw materials, a concessionaire should have a sound management
plan.
"If they want to get cheap investment from the stock market,
they have to fulfill the requirements to manage their concession
areas according to the basic rules that guarantee forest
preservation," the minister said.
He said an ecolabelling certificate will be needed by the year
2000, when importers require that wood products traded on
international markets should be from forests that care about
preservation.
If a company fails to get such a certificate from the LBI,
they can not market their products internationally at that time.
(yns)