AMKRI STILL NOT OPTIMISTIC ABOUT DEREGULATION PACKAGE

The Association of Indonesian Furniture and Crafters (AMKRI) was not too optimistic about the Economy Policy Package run by the Government considering that the reality afield was still a far cry considering that the reality afield was still a far cry from goodness. Meaning the Policy Package which consisted of some deregulation points and debirocratization would not bring any significant benefit on producers. The package would remain to be beyond expectation. This was obviously on account of certain interest of certain fraudulent interest of some big shots in the bureaucracy. An example was furniture producers who had to import cushion cloth for their products.

Producers had to face complicated bureaucracy in terms of quarantine, taxes, trading etc. “Haronized System of textile keeps changing time after time. He have to apply for new permit if HS changed. Every application needs 3 weeks to complete. This is quite troublesome to us. Not to mention the process of quarantine, harbor cost etc. And our imported cloth was accused as germ containing from abroad. In fact the raw materials contained no germs at all” Johanne Sumarno member of AMKRI Consultative Board told BusinessNews (8/10)

The Deregulation Package which was designed to jack up export finally turned counter productive. Since the era of Trade Minister Gobel, exporters were urged to jack up export. But bureaucracy made business difficult to producers. “We expect while the atmosphere is still on ‘honeymoon’ stage we have the chance to fight complications, Don’t let bureaucracy shackles us”.

In the same location, the Director of PEN Nus Nuzulia state that Government executives were not blind and not deaf. We are ready to be cursed in very meeting with businesspeople. “We listen to grievances and we are ready to make deregulations. Our Minister of Trade would announce the strategy in detail.” Nus told Business News.

Meanwhile Chairman of AMKRI Rudy Halim stated there were already investors in furniture products who relocated their workshop from Indonesia to Vietnam. There was some handicap in investment in Indonesia particularly in furniture, which was increase of workers wages. “Increase of wages can be as high as 20%. In some places in East Java the difference could be as high as Rp1 million.” Chairman of AMKRI Rudi Halim told Business News (8/10).

The problem of SLVK was also extremely not sensible. SVLK seemed “fixed price” for producers including small business. In Vietnam and China there was no mandatory rule for SLVK for producers of furniture so they could downsize production cost. In Indonesia high cost economy began from SLVK to loading and unloading at the seaport. “The producers in Vietnam are pragmatic not bureaucratic.”

Mandatory SLVK was spectra to furniture producers in Indonesia. SLVK was only relevant if wood raw materials for furniture was taken from conservation forest. Furniture producers in Indonesia did not take wood from the forest. SLVK was probably only applicable for the pulp industry because they used forest wood. (SS)

Business News - October 12, 2015