Local Forwarders Urge Business Certainty On Transportation

JAKARTA – The Transportation Ministry is urged to accommodate the national forwarder business interest in the design of Transportation Minister Regulation on the Implementation and Development of Transportation Operation Service.

Chairman of Indonesian Logistics and Forwarder Association (ALFI) of Jakarta Sofian Pane said the local forwarded business requires guarantee on business certainty especially in the design of Transportation Minister Regulation as the substitute of Transportation Minister Verdict No.10/1988 concerning Transportation Operation Service (JPT).

Up to this moment, he said, there is still no certainty on the beleid although the discussion has been taken for almost one year.

“ALFI has given advice so that the regulation design could be revised since there are some points which could bring loss to local forwarder business,” he said to Bisnis after the ALFI coordination meeting in Jakarta, Friday (2/28).

In the meeting, ALFI members were also questioning the delay of the revision towards the JPT substitute regulation.

According to him, the Ministry should have considered the local businessmen aspiration in view of the majority of forwarded business activities with JPT permit are classified into small and medium enterprises (UKM).

He also had a concern to the existence of large foreign investors on logistics business in domestic caused by the Transportation Ministry’s slow response on the revision request for beleid design.

“It does not mean that we are against the local investors in logistics, yet we are expecting the local business and UKM should also be considered,” he said.

In the Transportation Ministry’s design, the subscribed business capital imposed to any company in order to obtain business permit for transportation operation service (SIUJPT) is IDR4 billion for the major port, IDR2 billion for the hub port, and IDR1 billion for feeder port.

For forwarders which conduct activities in major port, there should be at least 75 units of trucks and 15 units of forklifts as well as remote warehouse facility and parking area.

In the hub port, the forwarders should have 50 units of truck and 10 units of forklifts while in feeder port there should be at least 25 units of trucks and 5 units of forklifts.

Yet he said ALFI is objection to that kind of regulation for obtaining SIUJPT. By the design, the local forwarders are forced to seek for new investors in order to meet the regulation.

For that, he urged the Transportation Ministry to act firmly and emphasize the national business interest in designing the regulation, moreover when the 2013 Asean logistics liberalization has been applied and will be acted upon through the implementation of Asean Economic Community in 2015.

“The government should guarantee so that the local forwarders and logistics could continue to operate and grow,” he said.

In Southeast Asia, Indonesia is the target of logistics industry. As the archipelago country which highly requires logistics, Indonesia owns 7% of market share of world’s logistics.

“Indonesia is a strategic country to investors who eye Southeast Asian market. It has a quite huge domestic market, supported with a constantly growing middle society,” he said. (k1)

http://business.bisnis.com/business/read/20140303/97/25319/local-forwarders-urge-business-certainty-on-transportation

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