Indonesia resumes granite supplies

Indonesia resumes granite supplies
 
GRANITE supplies from Indonesia have resumed, following the Indonesian authorities’ release of the last lot of detained barges from Singapore, the Building & Construction Authority (BCA) has said.But with the re-opening of this source of granite comes a twist: the government of the province of Karimun wants to impose a 20-per-cent levy on shipments of this construction material here.
News of the levy came from a statement which building-materials supplier Hong Leong Asia submitted to the Singapore Stock Exchange.

Indonesia imposed a ban on land sand in February, and then detained a dozen granite-bearing barges en route from Karimun to Singapore on suspicion of sand smuggling.

Although the export ban did not apply to granite, its supply was disrupted.

In the months since then, the construction industry here has found new sources of granite, for example from Malaysia, even though supplies from Indonesia have now resumed.

Five of the 12 detained barges were released last month; it could not be confirmed immediately whether the last seven released barges have arrived back here.

Hong Leong’s subsidiary PT Karimun Granite (PTKG) is now in talks with the Karimun government about the new levy, which could come to about $9.50 a tonne - making the material more expensive than that from other supply sources like Malaysia.
 

Source: The Straits Times, 27 June 2007

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