RI importers still hesitant to buy Australian goods

JAKARTA (JP): A significant number of Indonesian importers are still boycotting Australian commodities due to ill feeling between the two countries relating to the East Timor issue.

The chairman of the Indonesian Importers Association (GINSI), Amirudin Saud said in his office on Wednesday the volume of imports from Australia had been severely affected by the East Timor crisis.

"Importers, I think, will continue to shun Australian goods and switch to imports from other countries until John Howard is no longer prime minister," Amirudin said.

Trade relations between the two countries soured following Australia's reaction over what Indonesia considered domestic affairs in its former province of East Timor.

Australian labor unions refused to unload goods shipped from Indonesia at Australian ports in protest at what they claimed was the mishandling of the East Timor problem by the Indonesian government.

In reply, Indonesian importers said they would stop importing from Australia and find alternative countries for commodities such as cotton, sugar, wheat flour and meat which they previously imported from Australia.

Amirudin said total imports from Australia this year would not reach 50 percent of last year.

Indonesia imported US$1.76 billion worth of goods from Australia and exported $1.53 billion to the country in 1998.

Amirudin also said Indonesian importers had gradually regained trust from their overseas suppliers since the election of the new president Abdurrahman Wahid.

"We have even had importers who imported goods from their suppliers abroad without a letter of credit," he said. "This shows the return of foreign exporters' confidence in Indonesian importers."

Amirudin also hailed the government's move requiring importers to renew their identification numbers every five years.

Through a ministerial decree issued in October, the government requires importers to reregister their identification numbers every five years and submit a yearly report on their realized imports to the Department of Industry and Trade.

Amirudin said previously importers did not need to extend their identification numbers because they were valid for life.

But now he said the reregistration requirement would help the government tackle the problem of importers trying to avoid tax payment by putting fake addresses on their identification papers.

He acknowledged the government had lost at least Rp 500 billion (US$71 million) since 1996 from failing to collect import taxes due to fake addresses. (udi)