RI needs efficacious regulations: UPS

RI needs efficacious regulations: UPS

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Singapore/Clark

Indonesia has the potential to attract more international
courier businesses that will eventually boost the country's
international trade.

However, domestic hurdles remain high. The government, for
instance, still imposes numerous complicated duties and taxes.
Worse still, it has not successfully reformed its corrupt customs
services.

These have become the main impediments not only for courier
services but also for export and import businesses.

As Indonesia has yet to have a custom-free port or an
efficient refund system, businesses have to pay much more to send
a sample of products of 50 kilograms and above in comparison with
their rivals in other countries.

In countries with customs-free ports like Singapore, a package
worth under US$50 or below 20 kilograms will automatically go to
the customs' green lane, meaning that they are not subject to
physical inspections.

"Should the government increase the minimum up to 400
kilograms, then it will be much more beneficial to the local
industry," said UPS Indonesia country manager Dave Metcalf.

UPS Indonesia is part of Atlanta-based courier company United
Parcel services (UPS).

Problems are also here as Indonesia does not have a duty
drawback system, where customers abroad often let UPS stack their
goods not taken by the consignees back in the storeroom rather
than pay the expensive duty to get them back.

And it is a spacious storeroom fully-stacked with surf boards,
music instruments, golf clubs and other luxurious ordered by
Indonesian students through the internet using fraudulent credit
cards.

Hopefully, Metcalf said, all the barriers to the local
industries can be reduced in the near future as the government
has planned to open Bintan island, in Riau, as its custom-free
port.

UPS Indonesia has recently doubled the nightly capacity of its
courier service to and from Indonesia to 14 tons early this June
by operating bigger Boeing 737 express cargo jets flying almost
every night from its headquarters at the Halim Perdanakusuma
Airport in East Jakarta.

Services to and from Indonesia would become even speedier and
more reliable with UPS' opening last April of its intra-Asia hub
in the Philippines, precisely at the former U.S. Air Base at
Clark, now the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport.

"With both the new regional hub and the new plane, this makes
the service more efficient and reliable," Metcalf said.

The new 2,300 square meter-hub provides air cargo facilities
and a central sorting point would expedite UPS' package delivery
services to all major Asian cities.

They include Singapore, Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur and Penang,
Jakarta, Bangkok, Hong Kong, India's Mumbai, Japan's Tokyo and
Osaka, China's Beijing and Shanghai, Seoul, Taipei, and
Australia's Sydney.

UPS chose Clark to benefit from the Philippines' open-air and
custom-free-port policies.

UPS' Asia Pacific Region marketing vice president Matt McGee
said that the opening of the hub was to benefit from the ever
stronger inter-Asia relation and trade growth.

"We see Asian countries drive the growth in the region, while
some others have turned to be the considerable emerging markets.
We are here not only to jump into something, hoping that
something good would happen, but to provide solutions that help
the customers become more efficient and competitive," he told The
Jakarta Post and Media Indonesia during a recent visit to UPS'
Singapore office.

From the Clark port, the "browntails" -- that's how the UPS
people call their airplanes -- would help both exporters and
importers reach the Asia major cities and connect them to each
other just within four hours at most.

From Clark, the airplanes also deliver packages out of the
region, including to the U.S. and 280 Western European cities,
only overnight.

Although the airport is currently occupied by UPS alone, it
has been the busiest mail and cargo terminal -- well, only during
the wee hours actually -- where dozens of plane from all parts of
the region come and go within several hours.

Hundreds of quick hands load and unload lots and lots of
packages in a steady rhythm while making sure that no package
gets taken to the wrong plane.

Perhaps it is a slight chance for any packages to go to wrong
addresses, as the UPS' observant documentation system would not
let such mishaps to occur.

With UPS' hi-tech documentation system, customers will not
miss all the information about the presence of their packages.

They could check out the status of their packages through UPS
website: www.ups.com

In its integrated service, UPS will take care of the packages
and documents, whatever it is inside, even a microchip.

Nevertheless, the level of services any courier companies
could offer still depends on the regulations of each destination
country.