Six governmental bodies launched in Jakarta on Monday an application for oil and gas companies to apply for duty exemptions on imported exploration equipment.
The Finance Ministry said in a statement that the purpose of the app was to streamline and simplify the application process for the Finance Ministry Exemption Letter (SKEP).
“Most importantly, the [approval] waiting time is slashed from 42 working days to only 15 working days, which means we have reduced the waiting time by 50 percent,” said Mochamad Agus Rofiudin, who heads the ministry's National Single Window Agency.
The Finance Ministry issued the tax exemptions through regulations No. 177/2007, No. 178/2007 and No. 179/2007 to incentivize oil and gas exploration in the country.
The prior regulation exempted exploration equipment from import duties on the condition that the equipment was neither produced in Indonesia nor produced in sufficient quantities.
“It just makes [the application process] faster,” commented acting oil and gas director general Djoko Siswanto of the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry.
The app is called the Single Submission Fiscal Facility on Importing Items for Upstream Oil and Gas Activities.
