Canadian, local firms to sign accord
JAKARTA (JP): Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien is expected here Monday to witness the signing of an agreement between Canadian and Indonesian parties on an air traffic control project.
The president and chief executive officer of Hughes Asia/Pacific, John E. Kohler, said here yesterday that he will sign the agreement with an executive of Hughes Canada, Paul Austin, and Indonesian Minister of Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto.
Kohler said that the project will also involve PT LEN, a state-owned electronic firm under the supervision of the Management Board for Strategic Industries.
He said Hughes, one of the world's leading electronics manufacturers, will also sign an agreement on Wednesday with PT Ratelindo, a joint venture between the Bakrie Electronics Company and PT Telkom, which operates fixed cellular radio phones.
"Hughes will provide engineers to assist Ratelindo in installing infrastructure for radio phones. We will supply the hardware system and, in the long term, we will get involved in maintenance," he said.
Indonesia has been a faithful customer of Hughes for manufacture of its domestic Palapa satellites since 1976.
Indonesia has launched seven Hughes-made telecommunications satellites, including the Palapa-B2, which failed to reach its proper orbit when it was launched in 1984.
The third generation of the Palapa satellites, called the Palapa-C series, will also be developed by Hughes. The launching of Palapa-C1 is scheduled for late next year. Palapa-C2 will then be launched in the following six months. The Palapa-C satellites will be managed by PT Satelindo, partly controlled by the diversified Bimantara Group, which is owned by President Soeharto's son Bambang Trihatmodjo.
Study
Kohler, who is also the vice president of Hughes Aircraft Company, said yesterday that Hughes Communications Inc., a unit of a Hughes subsidiary, General Motor Hughes Electronics, has just completed a feasibility study on the Asian mobile geo- stationary satellite telecommunication system in cooperation with PT Pasifik Satelit Nusantara of Indonesia, Singapore Technologies Ventures and Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. The project, worth US$900 million, will cover major parts of Asia.
PT Pasifik Satelit Nusantara, operating in satellite recycling and management, is 30 percent owned by the state domestic telecommunications operator Telkom and 20 percent by PT Elektrindo Nusantara, a subsidiary of the Bimantara Group. The other shareholders include Hughes, Telesat of Canada, PT Pasifik Satelit Nusantara executives Adi Adiwoso and Iskandar and a number of other executives.
Hughes Network System, a subsidiary of Hughes Aircraft, also signed an agreement with Ratelindo in April, on the supply of a high-capacity fixed wireless digital telephone system for 250,000 subscribers in Jakarta. The telephone project's first phase, worth $78.5 million, will be completed by April 1995. (icn)