News
Indonesia's Directorate General of Customs and Excise on Feb. 1 took a step to simplify its customs formalities. Jakarta discontinued the customs inspections that it conducts of 2,973 items, including iron, steel and alloy raw materials; lubricant oil; cement; tires and plastics raw materials. Previously, it had placed a total of 5,229 commodities under its import regulations.
The government intended to shorten the duration of time for which shipments are held at ports and harbors. It hopes the discontinuation will reduce the amount of time consumed on customs formalities, more stably import raw materials and meet customer demand. The new regime will lighten the burdens that importers bear at the time of importing commodities, but at the same time, they are required to keep relevant documents for five years and undergo necessary inspections later.
As of Jan. 24, the average period of time import shipments were held at ports and harbors was 4.9 days, longer than the 2017 average of 3.3 days, keeping investment and trade from growing.
