The Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture recently issued a new regulation that eliminates the use of “harvest periods” as a basis to restrict horticultural product imports. However, the regulation also gives the Director General (DG) for Horticulture new and expanded authority to consider “domestic horticultural production” when issuing import licenses.
Local importers believe the DG will use this expanded authority to continue to restrict the timing and quantity of horticultural product imports. The Ministry’s burdensome and restrictive import licensing system is one of the reasons U.S. fresh fruit exports to Indonesia have declined significantly in recent years, including a drop of another 34 percent so far in 2018.
Instead of using “harvest periods” as a basis to restrict issuance of IRs and imports, the revised regulation gives the Director General (DG) for Horticulture new and expanded authority to consider “domestic horticultural production” when issuing IRs.
Previously, in considering IR requests, the Ministry used a calendar, which was based on harvest periods, to allow or ban imports during specific months. Reportedly, the Ministry is still using that same calendar, but now justifying the import bans during certain months based on consideration of “domestic horticultural production,” rather than the previous harvest periods' criteria.
