Miners exempted from export duty if smelter progress exceeds 30%
Tuesday, August 26 2014 - 01:12 AM WIB
The ministry said in a statement obtained Tuesday that based on the revised Ministry of Finance decree issued on July 25, there are three rates of export duty applied on mineral concentrates export depending on progress of the domestic smelters being developed by the miners.
An export duty of 7.5 percent will be applied if the progress level of the smelter construction reaches 7.5 percent, and export duty of 5 percent if the progress level is between 7.5-30 percent, and zero percent of the progress level exceeds 30 percent.
The government introduced in January of this year punitive progressive export duty of between 20-60 percent for mineral concentrates export as part of a wider policy to push for the development of domestic smelters in a bid to generate greater value from mineral commodities. While most raw commodities could no longer be exported, certain mineral concentrates can still be shipped overseas until 2017 as long as they pay export duty and have domestic smelter plan in place.
The government has been forced to ease the punitive export duty following widespread protest from miners. In the wake of the recent relaxation of the export duty policy, a few miners have started to resume export of mineral concentrates including copper giant PT Freeport Indonesia.
Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak