Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Trade Ministry has revoked the registered importer status (IT) of 2,166 companies due to their failure to regularly report, Trade Minister Rachmat Gobel said.

"The Trade Ministry has lifted the licenses of 2,166 ITs of the 5,017 registered importers for certain products, or 43.17 percent of the total," the Trade Minister said here on Friday.

Rachmat explained that of the 2,166 ITs whose licenses were revoked, 836 were ITs for electronics products, 321 for garments, 151 in footwear, 290 for food and drink, 133 for medicines and 256 in cosmetics and household health utensils.

The minister said that the revocation of the IT licenses was an effort to create an orderly national import regulation and an effort to create a wider space for the development of the nations industries.

In the meantime, Director General of External Trade of the Trade Ministry, Partogi Pangaribuan, said the revocation of the licenses of the 2,166 ITs had passed administrative evaluations.

"Of the 5,017 ITs, the 2,166 deserved to have their licenses revoked," he said.

Earlier, the ministry also took action against a number of cellular telephone ITs because, in the period of six months, they had not fulfilled their import requirements.

Cellular phone imports in 2014 totaled 50.6 million units worth 3.03 billion US dollars.

Also, laptop computer imports reached 59,435 units, valued at 5.6 million dollars. The importation of tablet computers reached 5.4 million units worth 386.3 million dollars.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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