Bimantara ready to raise cars' local contents

Bimantara ready to raise cars' local contents

JAKARTA (JP): PT Citramobil National, a subsidiary of the
publicly-listed PT Bimantara Citra, is determined to develop its
"national" cars with high local contents, even without an import
duty and tax breaks.

"With or without such tariff and tax breaks, we will go ahead
with our Bimantara cars," Poeng W. Lubis, a director at
Citramobil, said here yesterday. He was referring to the
government's newest automotive policy announced last February.

Poeng said his company will accelerate the increase of local
contents for its Bimantara cars in order to benefit from tariff
and tax incentives under the June 1993 deregulation package.

Under the package, sedans with 60 percent local components and
commercial vehicles with 40 percent local contents are granted
zero-percent import duties for the remaining components and the
lowering of the luxury sales tax from 35 percent to 20 percent.

He said the Bimantara Cakra, with a 1,500cc engine and the
Bimantara Nenggala, with a 1,600cc engine will have local
components of almost 8 percent and 17.2 percent respectively when
they are launched in July.

"We have planned to follow the June 1993 deregulation package
in developing our cars," Poeng said. "However, after the
introduction of the newest auto policy, which promises better
incentives, we want to pursue it also."

The government announced in February to extend tariff and tax
breaks to locally-owned companies to develop a national car. It
then appointed PT Timor Putra Nasional, controlled by President
Soeharto's youngest son Hutomo Mandala Putra, as the only company
to develop the national car for the next three years.

It has repeatedly turned down proposals from other companies,
including Citramobil, which wish to develop national cars to
benefit from the tax incentives.

Poeng said that his company had planned to develop the
Bimantara cars in cooperation with Hyundai Motor Company of South
Korea long before the government introduced the national car
program in February.

"We signed a memorandum of understanding with Hyundai Motor
Company to develop the Bimantara cars on Dec. 1 last year," Poeng
said.

The memorandum of understanding, signed by Chung Se-yung of
Hyundai Motors and President Soeharto's second son Bambang
Trihatmodjo of Citramobil, stipulated that the former would make
its best effort to the latter to provide technology assistance to
manufacture the Bimantara cars.

Hyundai Motors would also provide consent to Citramobil to
export the Bimantara cars.

They agreed to develop local components for the Bimantara cars
on a maximum level and establish engine manufacturing facilities
in Cikampek, West Java, to support the cars.

Hyundai Motors also promised to train Citramobil's engineers
to help the latter develop the Bimantara cars.

"So, you see, Citramobil is the principal company for the
Bimantara cars, while Hyundai is our technology and component
supplier," Poeng said.

Citramobil is 50 percent owned by Bimantara Citra's automotive
arm, PT Bimantara Cakra Nusa, and 50 percent by Bambang
Trihatmodjo.

Meanwhile, Vietindo Daihatsu Automotive Corp. (Vindaco), which
is 39 percent owned by Indonesia's PT Astra International and PT
Mitra Andasantika, launched its Daihatsu Hijet Jumbo, a 1.3-liter
utility van, in Hanoi on Saturday.

According to a press release by Astra's vice president for
public affairs Aminuddin yesterday, the Hijet Jumbo vans, which
are modeled on the Daihatsu Zebra minivan in Indonesia, were
assembled from completely unassembled kits imported from PT Astra
Daihatsu Motor in Jakarta.

"We have so far received orders for 820 Hijet Jumbo vans,
which are also to be introduced in Ho Chi Minh City today,"
Dirwan Widjaja, Vindaco's vice president, said at the launching
ceremony.

Dirwan said Vindaco has been importing 160 units of completely
unassembled vans monthly from PT Astra Daihatsu in Jakarta since
March, to be assembled at its US$32 million assembly plant near
Hanoi.

He added that Vindaco, which was licensed by the Vietnamese
government to assemble and manufacture utility vehicles in April,
1995, is 33 percent owned by Union of Mechanical Enterprise for
Communications and Transport, 26 percent by Daihatsu Motor Co.
Ltd. and 2 percent by Kanematsu Corp.

"The car market in Vietnam, though still very small with an
estimated market demand of only about 20,000 units this year,
promises a robust growth in the coming years," Dirwan added.
(vin/rid)