Plantations and Capital Investment

The Director General of Plantations at the Department of Agriculture is required by the provisions of Article 44 of Ministerial Regulation No. 26/Permentan/OT.140/2/2007 to provide technical recommendations for licenses where either foreign or domestic capital investment in plantations and the post-harvest manufacturing of plantation products is present. The Regulation, No. 129.1/Kpts/HK.320/12/07 stipulates the conditions for making an application for a technical recommendation and the procedures for granting a technical recommendation.

The conditions that must be satisfied when making an application are that the application must be in writing, in Indonesian, and in triplicate. The application is to be addressed to the Director General and is to be sent by registered post or some other equivalent method. There is a standard form letter for this purpose attached to the Regulation as Attachment I.

The application can be submitted either by a locally or foreign based incorporated entity. There is a requirement that the application include a copy of the applicant's identity; a recommendation from a local government official regarding the availability of land for the plantation; technical information concerning the size of the land, the type of plants, and weather and atmospheric data; and a work plan.

Where the applicant is an incorporated legal entity then the identity requirements are substituted with copies of the deed of establishment of the company and evidence of any land already owned by the company.

The procedures for the granting of the technical recommendation set the following time limits:

• where an application is incomplete the Director General will notify the applicant in writing within five working days of receiving the application that they must complete the application before it can proceed;

• where a completed application is received, the Director General will evaluate the application for a period of 12 working days; and

• once the evaluation is complete the Director General will notify the applicant in writing on whether the application has been accepted or rejected within 17 working days of the original application being received.

All the standard forms required to comply with this Regulation are attached to it.

The Regulation has been in force since 3 December 2007.