Award recipients encouraged to boost exports

Award recipients encouraged to boost exports

JAKARTA (JP): The Primaniyarta award recipients said yesterday
the awards would encourage them to improve further their export
performance.

President of the pulp and paper industry PT Inti Indorayon
Utama, Polar Yanto Tanoto, said the company would further expand
its overseas market in anticipation of competition in the
upcoming free trade era.

"Pulp and paper exports are still prospective in the future.
Currently prices of both products show an increasing trend on the
international market," Polar told The Jakarta Post yesterday.

Indorayon was among a number of companies which received the
Primaniyarta export awards from President Soeharto yesterday.

The publicly listed Indorayon, based in Medan, North Sumatra,
produces 220,000 tons of pulp and 60,000 rayon fibers each year.
It exports 70 percent of its pulp to Southeast Asian countries
and China and 30 percent of its products to India, Pakistan and
Bangladesh.

Another award recipient, polyester producer PT Indorama
Synthetics, expects its earnings from polyester exports will
increase to US$200 million this year, which would account for 50
percent of the country's total polyester products.

Indorama's corporate secretary V.S. Baldwa said that the
company's polyester exports accounted for 35 percent of the
country's exports of these products last year.

The Texmaco Group won for the fourth consecutive year the
award for the most impressive performance in the garment division
for exporting more than US$100 million worth of apparel last
year.

PT Busana Perkasa Garments, an arm of the Texmaco garment
division, repeated its impressive growth last year by further
diversifying its product lines and significantly expanding its
customer base overseas.

"We have been successful in convincing internationally
recognized brand names to use Indonesia as a source," said
president of the Texmaco garment division, M. Manimaren, after
receiving the award yesterday.

Texmaco Garments' product lines include men's shirts, ladies'
dresses, blazers, suits, skirts, shorts and pants, active wear,
jackets and knitted garments.

Texmaco Garments, with an annual production capacity of 12
million pieces, supplies high-quality brand names in the United
States such as Liz Claiborne, Nike, Jones Apparel, Ralph Lauren,
Tommy Hilfiger, Van Heusen, Levy Strauss, Wernaco-Chaps, Talbots,
Eddi Buer, Espirit and Kelwood-Halmode.

"In Europe, we supply Marks & Spencer, Sidensticker, Nike,
Carli Gry and Next. And we have set up a garment factory in
Semarang, Central Java, fully dedicated to Marks & Spencer,"
Manimaren added.

He said his group had also diversified into knitwear by
setting up a plant in Bogor, West Java, to produce knitted
garments exclusive to Nike.

"Our vision is to become a global manufacturing company in the
apparel business so that we can supply our buyers from different
countries," he said.

Manimaren said that quality and deadlines for delivery are
keys to accessing the world's best-known brand names.

"But we have a very strong competitive advantage as Texmaco is
fully integrated. We are able to source the majority of our
fabrics from our own plants. Hence, we are able to fully control
our garment quality and delivery schedules," he said.

The Texmaco Group of 25 companies operating in chemicals,
textiles, garments, engineering and financial services last year
booked $1 billion in revenues.

Two of its subsidiaries -- PT Polysindo Eka Perkasa and PT
Texmaco Perkasa Engineering -- which are listed on the Jakarta
and Surabaya Stock Exchanges, obtained earlier this month a tax
holiday facility from the government. (jsk/prb)