POLICE DETAIN TRUCK LOADING IMPORTED CHINESE PRODUCTS

Serang, Banten, March 14 (ANTARA) - The Indonesian police in Serang district, Banten Province, have detained a container truck loading Chinese products, a police officer said here Sunday.

Chief of Kramatwatu police precinct Adjunct Commissioner Benny Setyowadi said the container loading the Chinese five-and-dime products had no legal delivery documents.

"So we detain the truck and its container as evidence," he said, adding the truck driver, Suwanto, 35, had also been questioned for the police investigation purposes.

The Chinese products were not equipped with legal documents so that Indonesia had potentially suffered from material losses, he said.

Setyowadi said the truck was stopped in Cilegon, Serang district, on its way to Jakarta on Sunday afternoon by the policemen who conducted security checks for anticipating terror infiltrators.

The on-duty policemen found that the documents the truck driver gave contained false information because the container did not load sandals, wallets, and bags but five-and-dime products, he said.

Suwanto, the truck driver, told the police investigators that he was just ordered to take a container from Merak Port to Pluit, West Jakarta, Setyowadi said.

The driver might have known nothing about the legality of those imported Chinese products loaded to his truck's container, he said.

Various Chinese products have been flooding the Indonesian market far before the official implementation of the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA) in January 2010.

The Indonesian authorities are not only cautious with the legality but also safety and quality of the imported Chinese products to protect local consumers.

Jambi provincial trade and industrial authorities, for instance, had recently tightened its surveillance for such Chinese products as food, beverages, and drugs.

As of January 2010, ACFTA is entering the Normal Track (NT) I phase, imposing a zero percent tariff on 7,306 products or 83.61 percent of total tariffs on imported 8,738 products.