Jakarta. President Prabowo Subianto decided to impose a centralized export system for natural resource commodities after receiving multiple reports of invoice manipulation and trade-data irregularities in crude palm oil exports that allegedly harmed state revenues, Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa said recently.

“They lowered the declared prices compared with the actual selling prices overseas, and sometimes even reduced the reported shipment volumes. In a sense, part of these exports amounted to smuggling,” Purbaya said in a YouTube video released on Friday.

According to Purbaya, the practices reduced state revenues from export taxes, income taxes, and foreign-exchange earnings entering Indonesia.

He said Prabowo instructed him to investigate the issue, prompting a review of export patterns among 10 of Indonesia’s largest crude palm oil exporters.

The investigation found that many shipments were not exported directly from Indonesia to their final destination markets.

Instead, some crude palm oil exports bound for the United States were first routed through intermediary trading companies in Singapore.

“It turns out they usually export from Jakarta to the United States indirectly, through intermediary traders in Singapore,” Purbaya said.

He claimed the prices recorded for shipments from Indonesia to Singapore were significantly lower than the prices recorded for exports from Singapore to the United States.

“The price from Indonesia to Singapore was only about half of the price from Singapore to the United States,” Purbaya said.

As a result, Indonesia’s recorded export revenues and foreign-exchange inflows did not reflect the true value of the transactions, he said.

Purbaya said those findings ultimately led Prabowo to establish Danantara Sumber Daya Indonesia as the sole gateway for exports of strategic natural resources, including crude palm oil, coal, and ferroalloys.

The government argues the centralized system will strengthen supervision over commodity exports, reduce under-invoicing practices, and prevent state revenue leakages that Prabowo estimates could reach as much as $150 billion annually.

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