(Insider Stories) - The Indonesian Ministry of Trade  officially enacted the mandatory online application of 21 trade licenses, which makes these licenses no longer available to be applied for manually.

The the Indonesian Minister of Trade, Gita Wirjawan said, the goal of this rules to make it easier for entrepreneurs to obtain trade licenses because this proses of application is much more simple, orderly, transparent, and predictable.

As for the licenses that are included in the category of mandatory online application, they are namely the Special Importer Identity Number (NPIK) for products or commodities of rice, corn, soybean, sugar, textile and its products, footwear, electronics and their components, and children toys;Registered Importer on Definite Products (IT-PT) for electronic products, clothes, children toys, footwear, food and beverages, traditional and herbal medicine, as well as cosmetics; Registered Importer (IT), Importer Producer (IP) and Import Permit (PI) for horticultural products, and also IT, PI and Export Permit (PE) for animal and animal products.

Furthermore, the development of this online system will make it more convenient for Ministry of Trade personnel to store, process, and exchange date between institutions.

The Director of Foreign Trade, Bachrul Chairi, explained that to submit an application online, the entrepreneur is mandated to register online through the website http://inatrade.kemendag.go.id  to gain Access Rights to INATRADE.

INATRADE is an information system belonging to the Ministry of Trade that is used as a facility to obtain licenses whose applications are conducted manually and online.

Since INATRADE was established, the number of ownership of Access Rights continues to increase. At the end of 2012, the number of companies recorded to have Access Rights was 2,786, which have since then increased by 6.9% to 2,981 by the end of March 2013. At the end of June 2013, the number has since increased by 14,8% to 3,422 companies.

During the same opportunity, the Trade Minister also inaugurated the Trade Service Unit (UPP). UPP is a place for licensing services with a ‘Single Entry & Single Exit Point’ for domestic trade, foreign trade, standardization and consumer protection, and commodity futures trading.

With the UPP, applications and handing out of licenses is no longer done through the Directorate that issues the license but through the UPP.

According to the Trade Minister, the Trade Service Unit (UPP), which was established on 5 March 2007, has since then significantly improved its services, which was achieved through, among others: Integration of the Domestic License counter and the Foreign License counter into 1 counter.

Moving the location of the UPP to a more strategic place. Increasing the status of UPP, which was initially just a counter to accept applications and hand out licenses, into a unit that can directly process licenses.

There are at least 51 licenses that can be processed by the UPP and can be issued directly by the Coordinator and UPP Official within 2 days at most since the complete and correct application is received.

That utilization of UPP by the business world was considerably high. During the period of January-June 2012, as many as 5,101 applications for licenses were submitted through UPP. That amount increased by 62% to 10,918 applications during the same period in 2013.