Citatah's profit up 367%

JAKARTA (JP): PT Citatah, a publicly-listed marble producer, recorded a 367 percent increase in its net profit to Rp 10.9 billion ($4.6 million) in the first half of the year over the same period of 1995, the firm said.

It announced yesterday that the profit accounted for 44.6 percent of this year's profit target of Rp 24.5 billion.

The firm's financial director. Taufik Johannes, said the firm's gross profit margin rose to 64.7 percent in the first half of the year from 54.9 percent in the same period of last year.

Citatah, whose annual production capacity has now increased to 1.8 million square meters of marble from 840,000 square meters in 1995, is building two new plants in South Sulawesi and Karawang, West Java, with a total investment of Rp 50 billion.

The two new plants, scheduled for operation in the middle of next year, will add to the company's capacity by 780,000 square meters per annum. (jsk)