Apac invests in waste facility
JAKARTA (JP): Textile company PT Apac Inti Corpora has invested Rp 10 billion (about US$1 million) in a waste management and water treatment facility, a senior executive said on Monday.
Apac director of finance Anas Bahfen said that about Rp 6.5 billion was used to operate two waste water treatment units with a capacity of 2,200 cubic meters of liquid waste per day, and a water recycling unit with a capacity of 1,600 cubic meters of water per day.
He said that the remaining Rp 3.5 billion would be used to construct a facility to incinerate mud into sand.
"This final waste treatment unit will be operable in four to five months time," Anas was quoted by Antara as saying.
The waste management and water treatment systems earned the company the ISO 14001 certificate for an environmental management system.
The certificate was presented by the international certification agency Kema-IqNet on Friday and was witnessed by State Minister for the Environment Nabiel Makarim.
"For us one of the factors ensuring the company's continuity is a surrounding environment that is well looked after," Apac's president Benny Soetrisno said in a statement.
Apac produces yarn, greige fabrics, finished fabrics, and denim.
Last year the company had an output of 460,000 bales of yarn, 80 million meters of finished fabric, 54 million yards of denim, and six million meters of greige fabric, Benny said.
However, Apac feared losing about 30 percent of its total export volume to the United States, the company's major export market, due to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11.
"We've had a lot of cancellations on confirmed orders, and there have been no new orders coming in," he said, explaining that increased port security at New Jersey had held up distribution and caused delivery delays.
Benny said that to anticipate the slump in its U.S. market, Apac would increase export volumes to its 69 other export markets and increase its domestic sales.
In the light of recent developments, the company would also modify its targeted growth in sales for this year to only two percent from the 10 percent predicted earlier in the year, he said.(tnt)