BSD foreign investors determined to stay

BSD foreign investors determined to stay

JAKARTA (JP): Foreign companies are determined to maintain
their estimated Rp 600 billion total investment in the Bumi
Serpong Damai (BSD) housing and business complex in Tangerang, an
executive at PT BSD said on Thursday.

The president of PT BSD, Budiarsa Sastrawinata, said in a
statement made available to The Jakarta Post that the foreign
investors continued to believe in Indonesia's economic prospects
despite the continuing economic crisis.

He stated that the inauguration of the German Center in the
BSD complex by visiting Baden-Wurttemberg Prime Minister Erwin
Teufel from Germany, in a ceremony attended by President B.J.
Habibie on Sunday, demonstrated the determination of foreign
investors to maintain their investment in BSD.

Previously, the Deutsche Internationale Schule moved all of
its activities to the BSD complex, Budiarsa said, adding that
German investors were currently developing an Indonesian-German
industrial estate and were also in the process of studying the
possibility of building an Indonesian-German Institute in the
complex.

The German investors who have invested in BSD include, among
others, Merck and Boehringer Ingelheim Behn Meyer, he said.

Other investors in the BSD complex are from Malaysia, Japan,
South Korea, Singapore, the United States, Britain and France.

The newly inaugurated eight-story German Center, which was
designed as an ideal arena and meeting place for Indonesian and
German businesses, cost US$32 million to construct.

Habibie said during the inauguration ceremony that he hoped
the center would promote further cooperation between Indonesia
and Germany's private sectors.

So far, some 22 percent of the 17,174 square meters of total
building space in the center have been occupied by 16 tenants.

The center's president, Jochen Sautter, earlier said that 34
companies -- 22 Indonesian firms, 10 German companies and two
companies from Singapore -- had signed up for space in the
building, which stands on a 15,000 square meter plot.

The local firms occupying space in the building include Bank
Bali, PT Asuransi Allians Utama Indo and NV Djawa Indah. The
German companies occupying space in the building include Korsch
Pressen GmbH, Roedl & Partner, Stenbrenner Import & Export and
Tamprogge GmbH. (hhr)