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)