Ministry of Industry calls for tax holiday for smelter projects

The Ministry of Industry has called on the government to provide tax incentives particularly tax holiday to help accelerate the development of domestic smelter projects, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Wednesday.

The paper quoted Director General for Metal Industry, Transportation, Machine, and Electronics at the ministry I Gusti Putu Suryawirawan as saying that many of the planned domestic smelter projects have been facing funding difficulties.

As such, he added, the investors need tax incentives particularly tax holiday to help accelerate the development of the projects, which in turn would create jobs.

The government has been pushing for the development of domestic smelters after it banned early last year the export of mineral ores in a bid to generate greater added value from the commodities as mandated by the mining law.

Progress of the smelter projects have, however, been moving at snail?s pace due to various problems including the huge funding requirement.(*)