Austria's Elin set to expand in RI

Austria's Elin set to expand in RI

PAITON, East Java (JP): Austrian power plant equipment maker
Elin Energieversorgung GmbH will open several manufacturing
plants in Indonesia.

Elin's Southeast Asia account manager, Rudolf Kirchmayer, said
over the weekend the company would set up a joint venture with
Indonesia's Austrodwipa Priamanaya, to make a 150 kilovolt gas
insulated switchgear (GIS) -- a special inhouse substation which
distributes power.

He said the joint venture would build the US$30 million GIS
manufacturing plant near Jakarta in 1998.

"The negotiations between both companies are underway," he
said.

Elin and Austrodwipa will invest $10 million on remote
terminal units -- which control the operation of power
substations -- in Jakarta.

"We have signed the joint venture agreement and will start
construction later this year," he said.

Elin was also negotiating with state-owned engineering company
PT Boma Bisma Indra to set up a joint venture to make hydropower
generators worth $67 million in Surabaya, East Java, he said.

Kirchmayer said demand for power plant equipment in Southeast
Asia, particularly in Indonesia, would grow considerably as the
region industrialized.

Elin wanted to make Indonesia its manufacturing basis for
Southeast Asia when the region become a free trade area in 2003,
he said.

"We choose Indonesia (as manufacturing basis) because of its
lower labor costs," he said.

Elin, a subsidiary of Austria's biggest technology firm VA
Technologie AG, makes generators, transformers, control systems
and transmission lines.

It began operating in Indonesia in the early 1980s and has set
up a joint venture with Austrodwipa, PT Elin Indonesia, as a
consultant to power plant owners and operators.

Kirchmayer said Elin's hydropower generators and high-voltage
transformers were the market leaders in Indonesia.

Elin generators are used at hydropower plants in Cirata, West
Java; Kotapanjang, Riau; Singkarak, West Sumatra; Renun, North
Sumatra; Soroako, South Sulawesi, which is owned by nickel miner
PT Inco; and in Cikarang, owned by PT Cikarang Listrindo.

Elin has installed about 50 high-voltage transformers in
Indonesia. (jsk)