Choi Gye Wol's Kodeco opens up S. Kalimantan

JAKARTA (JP): The award presentation ceremony at the State Palace yesterday must have been one of the happiest moments in the 48-year-long business career of Choi Gye Wol, chairman of the Korea Development Co. Ltd. (Kodeco).

The Wreksa Parahitainvestor award given to 76-year-old Choi by President Soeharto on behalf of PT Kodeco Batulicin Plywood, one of around ten companies under the Kodeco Indonesia group, crowned his 35-year business career in Indonesia.

To Choi Indonesia is much larger than business interests. He likes to pour his feelings of being in love with the country and its people since his first visit in 1960.

Batulicin, a virgin jungle in South Kalimantan where he started his Indonesian enterprise and until now serves as the headquarters of his forest-based business, has become a well developed town of more than 50,000 people.

The town boasts eight kindergartens, five elementary schools, three secondary schools, three hospitals, several mosques and churches, playing grounds, sports centers and various other public facilities, entirely built by Kodeco.

The company also has been highly commended for its reforestation activities using such tree crops as rubber and oil palm in its concession area.

Kodeco Batulicin has an annual production capacity of 110,000 cubic meters of plywood which are exported mainly to the United States, Japan and South Korea.

Judgment

According to the team of judges of the Wreksa Parahita award, Kodeco Batulicin has been given the award because of its great attention to the environment, great community services, significant role in the provincial economy, intensive linkages to local resource development and well-established system of human resource development.

Choi recounted he had to go to the Indonesian embassy in Tokyo in 1960 to obtain a special identity card and entry visa as Indonesia and South Korea did not have diplomatic ties at that time.

"I first arrived in Indonesia in 1960 and proceeded to East Kalimantan to survey forest resources," he added.

But on his second visit he decided instead to set up his business in South Kalimantan.

His first visit was actually prompted by the Korean economy's thirst for raw materials for its burgeoning manufacturing industry. Later his involvement became rather emotional.

Choi's vision of the great outlook of Indonesia with its richly-varied and abundant natural resources, coupled with his perseverance and patience, culminated in a success in 1968 when his Kodeco group obtained a license from the Indonesian government to harvest forests in S. Kalimantan.

Kodeco is not only the pioneer of Korean investments in the country, but also was one of the first foreign investors to enter the country's shores after the enactment of the 1967 Foreign Investment Law.

Kodeco further bolstered its esteemed reputation as a developer of natural resources when in 1981 it became the first company from a developing country to enter the highly risky hydrocarbon sector which had been dominated by the oil majors from the industrialized countries.

The company began producing oil and natural gas near Madura island, East Java, in 1985 and its gas has been utilized by the power plant in Gresik near Surabaya.

"In the early 1960s, whenever I visited Jakarta I stayed at Hotel Indonesia, the only international-class hotel at that time. I got a phone in my room but it did not work most of the time."

Flight service to Banjarmasin was also rare.

"I sometimes had to wait for a whole day for a flight and often had to join a military aircraft," he said.

Now, he added, he is amazed by the dramatic development throughout the country. "I can make international calls from almost anywhere in Indonesia and I can fly to all major cities across the archipelago."

Now 27 years later, Choi's Kodeco Indonesia, growing along with the expanding economy, has diversified away from forest- based ventures into fisheries, electronics, container boxes, cement and steel.

"Indonesia, with its abundant and richly-varied natural resources and manpower, combined with wonderful weather and hospitable people, is destined to become one of the economically strongest countries in the world," Choi noted. (kod/vin)