Boeing to extend cooperation with IPTN

Boeing to extend cooperation with IPTN

JAKARTA (JP): Boeing Co. of the United States, the world's
largest aircraft manufacturer, will extend cooperation with
state-owned aircraft manufacturer PT Industri Pesawat Terbang
Nusantara (IPTN) to produce components, an executive says.

"IPTN is highly qualified as an airplane manufacturer. That's
why we chose it as the sole supplier for Boeing-737 components,"
Boeing's manager for international operations, Richard W. Smith,
told reporters here yesterday.

He said that cooperation with IPTN began in 1982 when Boeing
agreed to provide technical assistance to the Bandung-based
aircraft manufacturer.

Smith, who is here to attend a research and technology
exhibition at the Jakarta Fairgrounds, said that the technical
assistance to IPTN includes raw materials procurement,
engineering designing, manufacturing, production, flight tests
and delivery.

"Now we are also assisting IPTN on the engineering design for
the N-250 (a turbo-prop aircraft currently being built by IPTN),"
he said, adding that in 1988, his company assigned IPTN to supply
components for Boeing-737 aircraft.

IPTN made its first delivery in late January this year. The
components included 100 sets of inboard, outboard, and right and
left flaps worth US$15 million.

Boeing has signed a second contract which will end in 1998,
meaning that IPTN will deliver another 100 sets of similar
components worth $30 million.

Smith, accompanied by Boeing's communication manager Mark G.
Hooper, said his company has modified three Boeing-737 planes
belonging to the Indonesian Air Force. The aircraft will have a
modern avionic system which will be specially modified for
Indonesia.

Hooper said that the Seattle-based Boeing produced nearly 400
aircraft last year, 60 percent of which went to countries in the
Asia-Pacific region. (icn)