$197m loan to Ratelindo

JAKARTA (JP): PT Radio Telephone Indonesia (Ratelindo), a private firm operating fixed-cellular radio telephones will sign today a US$197 million lending facilities.

The loans will be provided by 12 international banks including Korea Development Bank, Bank of Taiwan, Fuji Bank, Keppel Bank of Singapore, Chase Manhattan Bank and Dresdner Southeast Asia.

Around $75 million of the total loans will be guaranteed by the United States' Exim Bank.

Ratelindo is 86.14 percent owned by PT Bakrie Electronics Company (BEC) of the Bakrie Group and 12.86 percent by state- owned PT Telkom. BEC is a joint-venture partly owned by the Netherlands' PTT Telecom.

In April 1995, Ratelindo secured lending facilities amounting to Rp 200 billion from 11 domestic banks. The loans were arranged by the state-owned BNI 46.

The new $197 million loans are to be used to finance Ratelindo's coverage expansion and customer service program.

People living far away from telephone cable infrastructures are the major market for Ratelindo, which operates the cellular digital radio telephones system.

Ratelindo which is supplied by Hughes Network System of the United States to construct the project, currently has a portfolio of some 80,000 users in the greater Jakarta area. The company expects to install 250,000 lines by the end of this year. (icn)