Indonesia mulls losing cellphone certification for global brands

Indonesia is considering scrapping its conformity certification for global cellphone brands next year in a bid to boost the country's industry, a minister said on Tuesday.

"Hopefully starting January 2017, global brands won't require a certification process (to launch its products in Indonesia)," Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara said in Jakarta.

He said the global mobile phone brands carried out better testing process for their products compared to that of Indonesia, where the country's tedious certification scheme can take up about a month, resulting in a long delay for the launch of any new handset.

He expected losing the certification process could expedite the launch of a fresh mobile phone in Indonesia, which is the third-largest smartphone market in the Asia-Pacific region.

"We will remain conducting investigation (into the products) in the market together with the Trade minister," Rudiantara said, adding that the plan has already received positive feedbacks from international cellphone companies.

Mobile phone penetration in Indonesia is still low with roughly 30 percent of its 250 million people owning cellphones. But the country is considered one of the fastest growing markets thanks to its large number of young age population and growing income per capita. Endit