Foreign loans to finance cement plant

JAKARTA (JP): PT Osin said its cement plant in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, will be financed by US$133 million in loans from a Belgian bank and Asian Development Bank consortium.

"The remaining $57 million of the investment needed for the project will be funded by loans from several other local businessmen," PT Osin's president A. Baramuli was quoted by Antara on Thursday as saying in Kupang.

He said that due to lack of infrastructure, PT Osin will build its own cement port with an investment of $10 million. It will also build a captive power unit of 20 megawatts that will cost $20 million.

Baramuli said that plant's construction was scheduled to start next February and it would start production in 1998, he did not divulge the designed capacity of the project.

He said the feasibility of the project concluded that the western Kupang area holds about 150 million tons of limestone and 50 million tons of clay deposits which will be sufficient to support production for 50 years.

He projected that the company will export 40 percent of its products to Australia and South Asia.

He said the cement demand in West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara and East Timor is estimated at 1.6 million tons a year, of which 120,000 tons are supplied by PT Semen Kupang and the remaining 1.4 million tons are shipped from Java and South Sulawesi.

Baramuli acknowledged that the construction of the cement plant project had been delayed for several years due to difficulties in arranging loan financing.

His company now wants the East Nusa Tenggara provincial administration to extend the project's location license. (04)