Davomas Abadi predicts exceeding profit target

Davomas Abadi predicts exceeding profit target

JAKARTA (JP): PT Davomas Abadi, a cocoa butter and powder
producer listed on the Jakarta Stock Exchange, expects to surpass
its profit target of Rp 22.83 billion (US$9.9 million) for its
1995 operations, a company executive said.

"During the first 11 months of last year alone, we already
posted a net profit of Rp 21.24 billion on total sales of Rp 115
billion," the company's director of finance, Ernas Krisna Mulya,
said on Saturday.

He attributed the high profit to the doubling of the company's
production capacity from 20,000 tons to 40,000 tons since last
July and the increasing demand for cocoa products on the world
market.

On raw materials, he said his company had no difficulty in
procuring its annual requirement of 50,000 tons from local
producers.

Indonesia's cocoa production was estimated to reach around
240,000 tons last year, lower than the forecast of 270,000 tons
due to torrential rains that delayed harvests on the key
producing region of Sulawesi, which accounts for about 70 percent
of the country's total output.

The company's products -- cocoa butter and powder -- are used
by down-stream industries as raw materials for making various
kinds of medicine and cosmetics and food products such as
biscuits, wafers, candy and chewing gum. (13)