By Bernadette Christina
JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia’s government has yet to issue permits for miners seeking to export tin in 2022 using the ICDX exchange, an official said on Wednesday, while the country’s other commodities bourse said it was unaware of any delays.
The Southeast Asian nation is the world’s second-biggest producer of tin and benchmark prices on the London Metal Exchange have hit record highs this week, reaching $43,815 a tonne in Asian trading on Thursday, amid rumours of a holdup in export licence issuance by Indonesia.
Meanwhile, state-owned PT Timah, Indonesia’s biggest tin miner, would begin exporting at the end of the month, as scheduled, its corporate secretary Abdullah Umar Baswedan said.
Bambang Setioso of the Indonesia Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (ICDX) said Indonesian tin exports were handled by two bourses and confirmed that miners using its platform had applied for exports to the government, but none have received approvals.
Setioso did not say why the permit issuance was held up.
“The ICDX has completed 2021 (exports) well and nothing was withheld,” he said in a text to Reuters. “As for 2022 export permits, none has been issued, although all smelters have applied.”
Stephanus Paulus Lumintang, chief executive of Indonesia’s other commodity bourse, the Jakarta Futures Exchange, said he was not aware of any export disruption.
He said it was normal that there was no tin shipments at this stage of the year, however, and that exports usually start at the end of January.
Ridwan Djamaluddin, director general of minerals and coal at the energy ministry, told Reuters there was no problem with exports by PT Timah, but permits for private companies could be held up “because they have not submitted RKAB (work plan and budget documents)”.
Tin miners must submit RKAB to the energy ministry to get their exports approved.
Indonesia shipped 74,671.57 tonnes of tin to the global market last year. ICDX said it handled transactions for 29,905 tonnes of tin.
(Reporting by Bernadette Christina Munthe; Writing by Gayatri Suroyo; Editing by Martin Petty, Ed Davies)
