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COAL PRODUCTION EXPECTED TO REACH 280 MILLION METRIC TONS
Jakarta - Indonesia's coal production target for 2010 has been set at 275 million to 280 million metric tons, according to the Association of Indonesian Coal Mining Companies (APBI).APBI's chief public relations officer, Herman Heru Suprob, said here on Wednesday the 2010 target was higher than last year's which reached 254 million metric tons of which 85 percent was contributed by APBI members."If all goes well, we believe production in 2010 will reach 275 million to 280 million metric tons," he said. Herman admitted the industry had had to deal with various problems in 2009 so that it was unable to reach its production target and even produced 20 percent less than the year before.One of the problems, he said, was licensing, particularly for mining in forested areas, a process that could take between six and 12 months to complete. He said this had happened because of lack of coordination between the central administration, in this case the energy and mineral resources ministry and regional administrations as well as between provincial and district administrations."The industry would suffer if they would go by themselves and become sector- ego-sectoral," he said.He said the condition would increase potential loss in the industry.Some companies have even postponed their investment plan due to a lack of legal certainty in the sector that needs huge investment, he said."Every office feels to have an authority with regard to mining licensing and it has confused investors," he said.Regarding the government's plan to issue new regulations in the forestry sector that would be connected with mining, Herman said he hoped they could be issued immediately.The new regulations that will be connected with upstream gas and oil activities and mining in the forestry sector are the government regulation on forestry land use and the government regulation on change of forestry land use and function.In addition to them there will also be a regulation on non-tax state revenue from forestry land opening and a presidential regulation on underground mining.He said the regulations which had become the program of the first 100 days of the government should have been produced on February 1, 2010. (Source: ANTARA News)
