France Telecom to support Telkom

France Telecom to support Telkom

JAKARTA (JP): France Telecom, one of Europe's leading
telecommunications operators, will help state-owned PT Telkom
improve its efficiency through a joint operation arrangement to
take effect this month.

With the Astra group and two other local partners, France
Telecom has set up PT Pramindo Ikat Nusantara to manage existing
fixed-telephone lines in Sumatra under a 15-year joint operation
(KSO) contract signed last October.

The contract requires Pramindo to install 540,000 new lines
within the next three years.

"Through the contract Pramindo will help Telkom improve
efficiency as we speed up the transferring of know-how to
Telkom," France Telecom's honorary chairman, Marcel Roulet, told
reporters here yesterday.

Under the KSO plan, Telkom will hand over its
telecommunications networks in Sumatra, West and Central Java,
Kalimantan and the eastern part of the country (Sulawesi, Irian
Jaya, Maluku and Nusa Tenggara) to five different private firms
which involve both domestic and overseas telecoms firms.

The private firms will operate and install the networks on
behalf of Telkom, which hopes to become a world class operator by
the year of 2001.

Roulet also said that his company, through Pramindo, will
concentrate on the project in Sumatra before arranging other
possible projects in Indonesia.

"Indonesia is one of the most potential telecommunications
markets in Asia," he said.

Meanwhile, France Telecom's vice president of international
growth, Michel Aunis, said that Pramindo is his company's biggest
join venture company in Asia.

"We have also partnerships in Japan and Thailand, but Pramindo
is currently our largest ownership in Asia," he said.

Pramindo is 59 percent owned by PT Astratel Nusantara, a
subsidiary of Astra group, and 35 percent by France Cable et
Radio, a subsidiary of France Telecom. The other six percent is
owned jointly by the employee cooperative of the Ministry of
Tourism, Post and Telecommunications, and PT Intertel Pratama
Media.

France Telecom's chief executive officer, Laurent Mialet, said
that his company's revenues and profit totaled US$32 billion and
$2 billion respectively last year.

"We are expecting a three percent or four percent increase in
revenues this year," he said, adding that France Telecom
currently has 145,000 employees. (icn)