Companies Shipping Toys To
Indonesia Need To Switch To Local Test Labs In April
April 19, 2016 | The
Toy Industry Association (TIA), along with a coalition of other stakeholders,
has been working over the last several years to effect changes in the onerous
Indonesian toy import regulations due to issues with certain requirements. One such
issue is the decree that two years after implementation, testing must be
conducted at a laboratory located in Indonesia.
The two-year lab-testing implementation period ends this month,
April 2016. TIA was hopeful the time frame would be extended while the
regulations are revised. It has instead run into a last-minute roadblock from
the Ministry of Industry’s Legal Bureau, which rejected a temporary grace
period to extend the appointment of overseas labs.
Therefore, starting April 17th, import shipments to
Indonesia must have an SNI certificate issued by a local “LSPro” laboratory or
a local lab affiliated with same. Items produced in Indonesia for domestic
consumption would also need to meet this requirement.
“The safest course of action is for importers to follow the
domestic testing requirements beginning April 17,” said Al Kaufman, TIA senior
vice president of Technical Affairs. “Concretely, this impacts all toy products
imported into or produced in Indonesia from this week onward, and importers
should use local labs if they had been using non-Indonesian ones.”
TIA will continue to monitor and report on this issue.