REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) asks the trade ministry to make ti simpler for small and medium scale enterprises to get the certificate of timber legality and verification system (SVLK).

"It is indeed difficult for small companies to get the certificate," Jokowi, who was a former furniture maker, said after opening an International Furniture and Craft Fair Indonesia (IFFINA) 2015 here on Saturday (14/3).

The president said he has already passed an order to simplify the procedure that all wooden furniture and craft industrialists could have the certificate.

"SLVK is good, but getting the certificate is not as easy as we think it is," he said.

Trade Minister Rachmat Gobel said SLVK is applied in Indonesia to ensure that all timber products from Indonesia have the legal status to convince consumer in international market.

"SLVK is needed to meet the wortld market requirement," Rachmat said, adding "if we want to go to the global market we have to follow the global rule."

He said the trade ministry would simplify the procedurre in line with the instruction of the president.

Earlier, the Indonesian Association of Furniture and Craft Companies (Asmindo) urged the government not to immediately enforce SVLK rule.

SVLK is effective in putting to an end to illegal timber trade and at the same time would improve the bargaining position of the country's forestry products, Asmindo general chairman Taufik Gani said.

"With SVLK the sources of timber products could be traced back, that Indonesia's competitors in wooden furniture market could no use smuggled timber from the country," he said.

He said so far a number of Indonesian competitors in the market of timber products, have exported furniture made of the types of timber that are found only in Indonesia such as kruing, merbau, or sonokembang.

SVLK was originally to be fully made effective on January 1, 2015 but for some reasons enforcement is put off until January 2016.

He said currently around 30 percent of 2,836 members of Asmindo already hold the SVLK certificate.

He said he was confident, all members of the associations which are dominated by small and mediums scale enterprises, could have the certificate this year, especially as the government has offered help to facilitate companies to get the certificate.

He said countries of destination such as the United States, Australia and the European Union imports wooden products only if they have the certificate.

Spokesman of the ministry of forestry and the environment Eka Widodo Soegiri said SVLK is an effective instrument to minimize illegal logging.

Eka said timber products having no SVLK certificate would not be easy to enter the market.

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