Dian Ariffahmi & Janeman Latul

A woman uses a BlackBerry in Jakarta. (Photo: Afriadi Hikmal, JG)

Trade Ministry Will Enforce BlackBerry Cutoff on Wednesday, if Asked: Official

The Trade Ministry is preparing to declare all new BlackBerry phones illegal and launch raids against stores selling the devices should the company that produces them, Research In Motion, fail to provide a local after-sales service office by a Wednesday deadline.

“If the Communications and Information Ministry wants to stop BlackBerry distribution and asks us to raid shops selling illegal BlackBerrys, then we will do it immediately,” said Inayat Iman, the Trade Ministry’s director of services and goods distribution monitoring. “We are waiting for their final decision on this matter.”

Inayat said that new BlackBerry phones might be deemed contraband after Wednesday if the Communications Ministry implemented the ban as promised after a meeting with the latter on Wednesday.

“This will mean that it will be illegal to sell or distribute BlackBerry devices,” he said.

Last week, the Communications Ministry said that it was standing by its July 1 deadline for RIM to establish a local after-sales service network or face a ban that could see a BlackBerry famine after existing stocks run out.

RIM has promised to set up such a facility by Aug. 26 to meet what it said was a Trade Ministry deadline set in May.

Speaking on Monday, Gatot S. Dewabroto, a spokesman for the Communications Ministry, acknowledged that his ministry had received a letter from RIM on Saturday explaining that it could not meet the July deadline.

However, he said that the ministry would not backtrack on the proposed ban “because we don’t want to appear inconsistent [in our treatment of RIM].”

The ban has been criticized by some BlackBerry customers who have publicly wondered on Web sites like Twitter about the reasons for the ministry’s position and its insistence on swift action. The two ministries and RIM only began discussing an after-sales network in early June.

Peter G. Fanning, the chairman of the International Business Chamber, a foreign business and investment organization, told the Jakarta Globe on Monday that “it would be a pity” if all BlackBerry phones were banned as of Wednesday.

Nevertheless, Fanning said that the international business community was in favor of the tighter local regulations, as long as they were implemented in a reasonable manner.

“The question is, what is a reasonable basis to expect compliance and whether this compliance is carried out in accordance with the regulations?” he said.

In principle, Fanning continued, there is nothing wrong with the government’s request for RIM to open an after-sales network in Indonesia.

“It seems reasonable that when you have any large-scale manufacturer set up in Indonesia, they would have an after-sales service anyway,” he said, adding that such centers would be taken for granted in the United States, for example.

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