Indonesia plans to tighten controls on tin solder exports by controlling the size of solder wire allowed for sales overseas, the Director General of Foreign Trade at the country’s trade ministry Bachrul Chairi told Bloomberg on Friday. Over the last six months sales of tin categorised as solder or other non-ingot products have increased substantially, thereby temporarily escaping a requirement that tin exports must be traded though the Indonesia Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (ICDX).
The ministry is now drafting several additional requirements to limit the scale of these sales: The diameter of wire will be set at 0.3mm-6.0 mm; there will be rules to help custom officials to easily categorize different types of tin shipments; companies will be obliged to obtain an export licence for each tin product; and smelters must establish separate units to produce solder and other tin products.
ITRI View: Since Indonesia’s new tin export regulation came into effect at the end of August 2013, an average of 26% of tin checked prior to shipment has been accounted for by solder or tin products other than ingots. However the share has been rising, and exceeded 40% in February. The exemption to the exchange trading rule for non-ingot products only runs until the end of this year, but it looks likely that there will be new measures to force exporters to use ICDX before that.
