Indonesia pulls cabotage rule on key commodities transport

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Indonesia has relented on planned cabotage rules for the international transport of certain key commodities, with local reports citing trade minister Enggartiasto Lukita as saying that his ministry had revoked the relevant regulation.

Trade Ministerial Regulation No. 82/2017 on the use of sea transportation and national insurance for export and import of certain commodities was revoked in response to protests by businesspeople about the difficulties in fulfilling the requirement, it added.

The regulation would have required the use of Indonesian ships to export and import three commodities, coal, crude palm oil and rice.

Earlier this year, Enggartiasto said he had met with Indonesia National Ship Owners Association (INSA) members to assess the readiness of the country’s shipping companies to take over the export-import operations of the three commodities. It appears they are not.

Both the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) and the European Community Shipowners’ Associations (ECSA) had strongly protested against the decree.

Before the outright revocation of the regulation, the Trade Ministry had reportedly issued Trade Ministerial Regulation No. 48/2018 to revise the contents of the initial regulation, which postponed the requirement of using Indonesian ships for export and import of the three commodities.