The Ministry of Trade (Kemendag) revealed that since December 15, until now there has not been a single raw/auxiliary material commodity that has been approved for import rights by the Ministry of Trade. Director of Import of the Ministry of Trade Sihard Hadjopan Pohan said this was because none of the relevant ministries and agencies had applied for import rights. “Ask the Ministry of Industry. We only issue import approvals. Until now, no one has submitted it," said Sihard, Wednesday (8/2/2023). According to him, the reason for not submitting the import rights was due to regulatory changes related to the use of commodity balances as the basis for imports.

"The Perppu is about to be revised. Discussions are still in their respective internal. Then later at the Coordinating Ministry for discussion," said Sihard.

Sihard himself was reluctant to specify which commodities were still hampered by their export rights. However, referring to the National Single Window Institution of the Ministry of Finance, there are at least 21 auxiliary raw materials whose import permits have not been approved. These goods are raw materials for footwear, raw materials for alcoholic beverages, raw materials for lubricants, plastic raw materials, tires, steel and its derivatives, biodiesel, bioethanol, condensate, LNG, color multifunction machines, color copiers and printers, air conditioning machines , crude oil.

Furthermore, apparel and clothing accessories, saccharin and cyclamate, textiles and textile products, cellular phones, handheld computers and tablet computers, and TPT with batik motifs. Previously, the General Chairperson of the Indonesian Association of National Importers (GINSI) Capt. Subandi said the impact of this was that business actors were ultimately hampered by production and suffered huge losses.

"In the end, it's a bottleneck. It's still running the industry but use products before December 15th. After that, nothing came out [the import permit]. As a result, the industry uses the leftovers," said Subandi, Monday (6/2/2023).

He said, the implementation of this commodity balance is a provision of Government Regulation Number 88 of 2021 concerning the Implementation of the Industrial Sector which is a derivative of the Job Creation Law. Subandi said that PP 28/2021 actually did not apply after the Ciptaker Law was annulled by the Constitutional Court in November 2021 and was mandated to be revised within 2 years.

"Because the government issued Perppu Ciptaker [Government Regulation in lieu of Law Number 2 of 2022 concerning Job Creation in December 2022] to revive the Ciptaker Law. This is so messy too, “said Subandi.

Technically, he said, the use of the commodity balance is not yet ready. This is because import applications must go through the National Commodity Balance System or SINAS-NK. This information technology-based system actually makes it difficult for entrepreneurs to import.

Even though the commodity balance is said to simplify export-import licensing and become the basis for issuing export approvals and import approvals, as well as provide legal certainty in business licensing.

"There are two types, some have submitted but the format is not accommodated in the Sinas NK format type. So no response yet, rejected. Some people can't get in yet. There are also those who don't understand how to submit their data because the socialization is minimal," said Subandi.