TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta:Businessmen are again urging the government to withdraw two Trade Ministry regulations that ban rattan exports and regulate trans-island rattan transportation. According to the Indonesian Rattan Businessmen Association chairman, Julianus Hoesan, the two rules have caused rattan to become scarce at production centers. He said that hundreds of tons of farmers’ rattan could not be absorbed by businessmen due to the new transportation regulation that requires the commodity be delivered by an enterprise. “This puts pressure on rattan suppliers who are mostly farmers and individuals,” he said last weekend. Besides the regulation, the document verification process conducted by PT Sucofindo is too long, he said. “As a result, there are piles of rattan supplies that can’t be distributed to the market,” he said. Sucofindo senior manager, Erwin Ernanto Hoesni, said the office was now improving the service. He said Sucofindo has been processing the goods as they arrived. “It’s not true that the process takes a long time,” he said. The company, said Erwin, is preparing a faster data verification method through a new text messaging service. RAFIKA