Astra to plans Rp 300 billion investment

JAKARTA (JP): PT Toyota Astra Motor (TAM), a subsidiary of the country's largest automaker PT Astra International, plans to invest Rp 300 billion to increase the local content of its new Kijang van to 60 percent from around 45 percent.

TAM president Rudyanto Hardjanto said yesterday the additional investment would be used to build a forging plant and an engine factory.

"We hope we will be able to reach the 60 percent local content target by 1999," he said after the opening of a five-day promotion for the new vans.

He said the radically new Kijang model, which has an off-road price of between Rp 27.05 million and Rp 43.4 million (US$18,000), now had 45.8 percent local content.

The firm plans to produce 100,000 Kijang vans next year. "Between 10 percent and 20 percent of these are for the export market," he said.

He said the firm planned to sell between 2,500 and 3,000 unassembled Kijang vans a month to several ASEAN countries next year.

Rudyanto said the volume of vans exported could increase to 3,000 a month. "But it will depend on the market conditions in those countries," he said.

Completely assembled vans would also be exported to Brunei Darussalam, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and other countries.

Astra International claims to have exported 5,541 Kijang vans to Brunei, 489 Kijang pickups to Papua New Guinea and 283 Kijang vans and pickups to Fiji, Salomon Islands and Tonga between 1986 and 1996.

TAM expected to earn $63.5 million (Rp 149,8 billion) from exports in 1997 and $84,5 million in 1998, Rudyanto said.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade's director general for metal, machinery and chemical industries, Effendi Soedarsono, said the production of four-wheel vehicles in Indonesia had fallen to 298,233 units last year from 387,541 units in 1995.

He said the annual average production of category I vehicles, which includes light commercial cars and vans, had risen from 184,242 units in 1995 to 202,128 units last year.

"This category had a 60 percent market share of the country's total production," he said.

Effendi said that PT Toyota Astra Motor, which produces the 1800-cc engine Kijang, made 23.9 percent of all category I vehicles.

Astra International commissioner A.R. Ramly said the new Kijang model was built to coincide with the commemoration of Astra International's 40th anniversary on Feb. 20 this year.

Rudyanto said the company had spent much of its Rp 730 billion ($309,3 million) expansion investment on its production plant in Karawang, West Java, which is scheduled to begin production in 1998. The money was used to develop assembly, stamping, engine and casting plants. (09)