Government to remove tin export restriction in Bangka

The central government will issue a regulation to annul the tin export restriction imposed by the provincial administration of Bangka and Belitung, Kontan daily reported on Wednesday.

The Ministry of Trade and the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources have established a special team to persuade the local government to lift the tin export control and to prepare a Presidential decree which would annul the export restriction.

Ardiansyah Parman, the director general of domestic trade at the Ministry of Trade said in Jakarta on Tuesday that the presidential regulation would take over the control of the tin export from the local government.

"The local government cannot regulate export or to restrict exports of a certain commodity. It's the central government's domain to do that," he was quoted as saying.

The governor of Bangka and Belitung province Eko Maulana Ali issued a regulation in September last year to limit the tin export to a maximum of 90,000 tons a year in order to curb illegal exports and control to the tin mining activities in the province.

For this purpose, the local government has allowed only 14 registered exporters to carry out the tin exports from the province. The Trade Ministry insisted that that the local government had no authority to issue such export restriction.

According to the daily, the Trade Ministry is interested to incrase the national tin output to 120,000 tons per year.(*)