Surveyor Indonesia to replace SGS by end of this year

JAKARTA (JP): The pre-shipment inspection of goods to be imported to Indonesia, which has been done by the Swiss company Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS) since 1985, will be taken over by PT Surveyor Indonesia (PTSI) by the end of this year.

After gradual preparations, PT Surveyor Indonesia will now be capable of doing the inspection work at foreign ports which has been handled by SGS since 1985, the chief commissioner of Surveyor Indonesia, Soedarjono said in London on Thursday at the inauguration of a PTSI branch office in the British capital.

The bulk of the pre-shipment inspection work is already being handled by PTSI, the Antara news agency quoted Soedarjono as saying.

The company, set up in August 1991 to replace SGS, is 76 percent owned by the Indonesian ministry of finance, 20 percent by SGS and four percent by PT Sucofindo, another surveying firm owned by the Indonesian government.

Based on a regulation issued in 1985, goods worth more than US$5,000 being shipped to Indonesia have to be inspected at the country of origin.

Certain goods such as pulp, fertilizer, oil and gas products and goods for use in projects funded with foreign aid are exempted.

The London branch office, located in Camberley, 50 kilometers southwest of London, is the twelfth set up by PTSI since its establishment.

The eleven others include those in Rotterdam in Holland, Antwerp in Belgium, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, Bangkok in Thailand, Sidney in Australia, Paris in France and in Singapore.

By the end of 1994, at least seven more branches would have been established, among others, in Hamburg, Germany, Milan in Italy, Kobe in Japan, Seoul in South Korea and New York in the United States, Soedarjono said.

The possibility of opening a branch in South Africa will also be studied in view of that country's trade potential, he added.

Robert D. McCutchen, PTSI's director of operation, was quoted by Antar as saying that PTSI can now tackle the pre-shipment inspection work as satisfactorily as SGS.

McCutchen is a US citizen who has been residing in Indonesia since 1972.(17)