Why SIUP Stays in My English

One of the samples on my ProZ.com profile is a single sentence from a trade business license. It is short, and it is one of the sentences I would use to explain how I work with official documents.

The source:

Surat Izin Usaha Perdagangan (SIUP) ini berlaku untuk melakukan kegiatan perdagangan di seluruh wilayah Republik Indonesia selama perusahaan masih menjalankan kegiatan usahanya.

My translation:

This Trade Business License (Surat Izin Usaha Perdagangan/SIUP) shall be valid for performing trade activities throughout the territory of the Republic of Indonesia for as long as the company still conducts its business activities.

English first, Indonesian in brackets

The reader needs to know what the document is, so the English name comes first. But the reader also needs to recognize it. The original carries "SIUP" in large letters, and so will every other document in the company file: the bank's records, the deed, the tax papers. Drop the abbreviation, and the reader has to guess that the Trade Business License and the SIUP stamped on the original are the same thing. Keep it, and nobody has to guess.

Berlaku is a statement of validity

Berlaku could be "applies" or "is in force". I chose "shall be valid" because the sentence is the license describing its own legal effect. That is normative language, and English legal drafting expresses it with shall.

Two verbs for two activities

The sentence has two activities in it. Melakukan kegiatan perdagangan became "performing trade activities". Menjalankan kegiatan usahanya became "conducts its business activities". When the object is business activities, especially with a field attached, conduct is the verb English drafters reach for. I wrote a longer piece on that choice; it comes up more often than you would expect.

Throughout the territory

Di seluruh wilayah Republik Indonesia is a fixed phrase in Indonesian law, and "throughout the territory of the Republic of Indonesia" is its fixed English partner. "All over Indonesia" says the same thing. It just does not say it the way a license does.

A note on age

Newer companies usually hold an NIB, the business identification number issued through the OSS online system, and the SIUP has largely given way to it. SIUPs still turn up, though, in older company files and in due diligence packs. When they do, the same rule holds: name it in English, keep the Indonesian, and let the license speak in its own register.