Official fees seen as burden to industry
Official fees seen as burden to industry
JAKARTA (JP): Industries in East Kalimantan currently have to pay at least 24 official fees, including taxes, imposed by the central and local administrations.
The Antara news agency yesterday quoted an anonymous source in Samarinda as saying that the fees and levies varied in amount, "but when totaled in a period of months or years could reach millions of rupiahs".
The source said that businessmen in East Kalimantan have already filed both unofficial and official complaints to the central and local administrations because the fees had become extremely burdensome.
An example of such a fee, the source said, was the 10 percent value-added tax imposed on logs. The tax caused the Association of Indonesian Wood Panel Producers (Apkindo) to file an official protest, claiming they were already burdened by other mandatory payments, such as reforestation funds and forest royalties.
Another fee which sparked complaints was one that was recently imposed by the Ministry of Manpower for safety and health control at factory machineries.
"In the beginning, the fees were only imposed on boilers and other important plant equipment. Now they cover all types of machinery, with amounts varying according to the capacity of the machines," the source said.
Last month, similar complaints were issued by plantation companies, who said official fees were so burdensome that they had become a major barrier to the development of agribusiness companies.
According to Antara, the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade's East Kalimantan office, Himanuddin Nasution, has confirmed the complaints, saying that his office has already informed the Ministry's head office in Jakarta of the situation and asked for a review.
Nasution said the Minister of Industry and Trade recently ordered all heads of local offices to monitor the fees imposed on industries, to be used as an input to formulate the next deregulatory package.
The government lastly issued a deregulatory package last May, which promised tariff reductions across the board until the year 2003, setting maximum rates on most goods at between five and ten percent down from 40 percent.
The package also accelerated plans to eliminate tariff surcharges in 153 categories.
Nasution said the fees imposed on industries should be reviewed because they could erode the competitiveness of Indonesian industrial products.
Nasution, who took up his post four months ago, said his office was closely monitoring illegal fees imposed by certain officials on industries, but admitted he had yet to find strong evidence of such practices.
Presently there are about 12,500 industries in Kalimantan, of which 12,000 are categorized as small industries. The industries have a total investment of Rp 4 trillion (US$1.75 billion) and employ some 106,000 workers.
Until the end of 1995, the industrial sector contributed the single largest share, or almost 24 percent, of East Kalimantan's Gross Regional Domestic Product, Nasution said. (pwn)