Govt to confine tin sand trading to two provinces

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The government intends to confine tin sand trading to only two provinces -- Bangka Belitung and Riau Islands -- after noticing indications that the commodity is often smuggled abroad using domestic inter-island trade permits, a senior trade official said.

"The draft of a relevant regulation is almost finished. We have to do it in order to protect the competitiveness of our tin. So, eventually, tin sand can no longer be sent (from Bangka Belitung and Riau Islands, the tin producing regions) to Java or other provinces," Ardiansyah Parman, director general of domestic trade, said here Friday.

He said the measure would be taken as there was strong suspicion that tin sand (from the country`s tin-producing regions) was being exported under the label of inter-island trade, the practice was working only to the benefit of tin smelting industries in other countries which were thereby enabled to obtain the material at a lower price.

"Bangka Belitung is the only province in Indonesia where tin smelting is done. So , if tin sand is transported to another province, the question arises : what for?" Parman said.

The government had already banned export of tin sand but illegal tin miners circumvented the ban by sending the tin sand abroad in the shape of bars.

The ban was also imposed to reduce damage to the environment and boost the state`s income from tin exports, he said.

In the January-June period of 2006, Indonesia crude tin exports reached a total value of US$438.45 million, up from US$406.41 in a corresponding period last year. The exports went to Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

Parman said the trade ministry was also planning to tighten control over export of tin bars by issuing permits only to registered exporters.