Global Trade Alert

On 24 June 2013, the Indonesian Ministry of Trade issued regulation 29/M-DAG/PER/6/2013 restricting exports of crude palm oil and its derivatives.
Based on article 2 of the regulation, exports of crude palm oil (hereinafter: CPO) and its derivatives shall be subject to verification or a technical search conducted by a licensed surveyor. The procedure includes physical verification of 

• the number, type, brand and package number,
• the number and type of goods,
• technical specifications,
• HS codes concerned,
• as well as the supervision of the loading process and issuing the seal on the containers (art. 5(1)b).

Before being recognized by the Ministry of Trade, a surveyor needs to:

• own a surveyor license,
• obtain an accreditation as an inspection institution from the National Accreditation Committee,
• have experience as a surveyor of CPO and its derivatives for at least 5 years,
• possess a wide network of verification and technical search services across the country,
• have experts and equipment appropriate to the duty it has to fulfil (art. 4).

The provisions were supposed to come into force 6 months after issuance but it was changed by amendment 02/M-DAG/PER/1/2014 to 12 months. Therefore the new regulation applied starting on 24 June 2014.
A detailed list of the technical specifications is given in the appendix of regulation 29/M-DAG/PER/6/2013.
 
Updates:
On 14 July 2015, the Indonesian Minister of Trade issued a new regulation 54/M-DAG/PER/7/2015 replacing the initial provisions. The amendment included an expanded list of requirements for exporters such as having sufficient IT systems, 10 laboratories with complete equipment (at least 5 of them nationally certified) and providing a good track record in the verification process.
On 22 October 2015, the Ministry passed regulation 90/M-DAG/PER/10/2015 slightly updating the export restrictions. The amendment did not include any relevant changes.

On 28 February 2019, the Indonesian Ministry of Trade published regulation 17/2019 revoking the previous regulation by 7 March 2019. However, another regulation by the Ministry of Finance (22/PMK.04/2019) was introduced on 8 March 2019 introducing other, more lenient export controls for crude palm oil (see Related State Acts). Given that de facto export controls on crude palm oil have not been fully lifted, this intervention continues to be in force.