Kadin calls on govt for further help in forestry

Kadin calls on govt for further help in forestry

Rendi A. Witular
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta

The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) has
urged the government to immediately establish a special agency,
comprising government and business representatives, to resolve
problems faced by the forestry sector.

The deputy chairman for forestry and plantation affairs in
Kadin, Soedjai Kartasasmita, said the Ministry of Industry and
Trade and the Ministry of Forestry had agreed to set up an agency
for revitalizing forestry and sustainable raw material by August
of this year.

However, the agency has not been established yet, he said.

Soedjai criticized the Ministry of Forestry in particular for
the delay, saying that it was reluctant to sign a decree on the
agency's establishment, while the Ministry of Industry and Trade
had long been ready to sign the decree.

"This shows that the Ministry of Forestry has had no
willingness to solve the problems confronting the industry," he
said.

The agency, which was the idea of Minister of Industry and
Trade Rini Soewandi, aims to boost the export of the country's
forestry products and resolve the raw material shortage faced by
the industry.

The agency will also help find ways to prevent further
deforestation and to protect the environment.

Spokesman for the Ministry of Forestry Koes Saparjadi denied
that it had refused to cooperate, saying that the ministry and
the businessmen involved in the making of the agency had yet to
agree on the mission of the agency.

"We don't have any problem with the Ministry of Trade and
Industry, but we do with the businessmen, and we want to have a
common understanding with them over issues regarding the raw
material supply before setting up the agency. We haven't been
able to agree on that yet," Koes said.

He refused to name the businessmen involved.

Koes said the businessmen wanted the ministry to increase the
log quota for 2003, saying that the 6.8 million cubic meter quota
set by the ministry was too low compared to the industry's total
installed capacity of 60 million cubic meters.

KADIN said the forestry industry was the largest contributor
of foreign exchange earnings for the country in the non-oil and
gas sector.

However, it said that annual export earnings from the industry
had declined to US$4 billion during the period of 2000 to 2002
from between $7 billion and $8 billion from 1999 to 2000.

The government's nontaxable revenue from the industry is
estimated at Rp 3 trillion ($333 million) this year and, under
the 2003 state budget draft, the revenue is estimated to fall
further to Rp 1 trillion next year.

Environmentalists blame the industry's woes on illegal loggers
who have damaged most of the country's forests and smuggled logs
out of the country. This has resulted in a shortage of raw
material for local forest-based industries.

However, businessmen blame the raw material shortage on the
government policy, which bars them from logging old growth
forests.