Govt to raise rental tariff of land for mining

By Bambang Atmaja

The government is to increase the rental prices for land used for mining by 33 percent this year as an effort to raise state revenue, a minister said.

Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan said that with the hike, the government expected the revenue to increase from Rp3 trillion to Rp4.2 trillion.

"The tariff of land rental is to be increased by 33 percent this year to increase the revenue on mining sector," he told Petromindo.com at the State Secretary building after a cabinet meeting.

For 2015, the minister said that the government expects to increase the revenue to Rp5 trillion.

The government rules the current rental under the PP number 2, 2008.

On the same occasion, Coordinating Minister for Economy Hatta Rajasa said that the government also aimed at decreasing too-wide lands controlled by miners. The minister said that the government would take over the firms' operational rights of the lands they controlled but let unused for a long period.

"The purpose is to create fairness by preventing miners having hundreds hectares of land, very large, but most of it is unused. It is not productive. The community and the state could not get any benefit from it," he told Petromindo.com Tuesday.

"For example, a firm controls 25,000 hectares of land. But it has only used 5,000 hectares of it for years. The rest of 20,000 hectares is unproductive. It is is used, it will give revenue to the local area, create jobs and there is going to be economic development," said Hatta.

Editing by Adianto P. Simamora