PULAU PINANG, Nov 4 (Bernama) -- Entrepreneurs planning to export theirproducts to countries in Asean are advised not to use middlemen to handletheir applications for the Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) toavoid being cheated.

Deputy International Trade and Industry Minister, Mah Siew Keong, saidthat the CEPT application process is free of charge and if the forms arecorrectly filled and attached with the relevant documents, approvals couldbe obtained within two days.

He said that no payments should be made to the Ministry Of InternationalTrade and Industry (MITI) staff or middlemen to expedite the approval andthat allegations that the process took a long time were not true.

Speaking to reporters after visiting the ViTrox Technologies Sdn Bhdplant, a solution provider for the semiconductor industry, he deniedallegations by certain parties that the application process took some 10days and that an amount of money was required to be paid to certain peopleto expedite the process.

He said this in response to complaints by an opposition member in Penangand a number of other parties that the application took a long time to beapproved and required a large amount of money.

According to Mah, applications for CEPT could be made at all MITI's branchoffices and not only in Kuala Lumpur.

"What is important is that the applicant should personally submit thecompleted Form D with the necessary documents and don't use middlemen. Ourinvestigations revealed that these allegations were baseless," he said.

He said that between January and September 2003, a total of 8,170applications were received in Penang while up to September this year, thenumber increased to 11,737.

"This indicated that our exporters understand and have knowledge of thespecial tariff," he said.

On the investment climate in Malaysia, Mah said that although the worldeconomy experienced a slowdown, Malaysia's economy was still good andexpanding.

Malaysia's exports increased 20 percent up to September this year valuedat some RM44 billion compared with last year and the rise was contributedmainly by the hike in crude oil and crude palm oil prices in the worldmarket.

As for Penang, he said that new investments in manufacturing projectsstood at RM602 million up to August 2004 compared with RM658 million forthe entire year last year.

He was confident that this year's exports could surpass that recorded in2003, while biotechnology could help to spur Penang's performance.

-- BERNAMA