German Center waiting for occupants
German Center waiting for occupants
TANGERANG (JP): After being open for 10 months, the eight-
story German Center for Industry and Trade in the Bumi Serpong
Damai (BSD) housing complex here has only attracted at least 16
businesses so far.
The center's president director, Jochen Sautter, said on
Tuesday that management had a great number of companies ready to
run business activities at the US$32 million building which has
total rental space of some 17,000 square meters.
"But how could they start business if the poll vote is still
being counted?
"The business community of course wants to see what the next
president looks like. So, they're still waiting," Sautter told
The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of a press tour at the
state-of-the-art building.
Besides the 16 companies, supported services such as a post
office, media center, restaurant, pub, and canteen have already
filled spaces, bringing the total occupants to 25.
Sautter said the current tenants already represented 30
percent of total space in the building.
"It's a good occupancy rate at such a bad time," he said.
The building management, he added, "are still looking for some
45 or 50 other companies to fill up remaining space".
In March last year, six months before it was ready for
occupancy, Sautter boasted 34 local and foreign companies had
signed up for space and would move into the building at the end
of 1998.
They included 22 Indonesian firms, 10 German companies and two
Singaporean enterprises, he said at the time.
During the press tour on Tuesday, Sautter invited the media
to see the business activities at PT LJ Elektronik Indonesia
cable producer, a German Swiss business training foundation also
known as Yayasan Bina Eksekutif, Senior Experten Service, also
from Germany, and DEG, a German investment and development firm.
Ratna A. Sumrah, operations manager of LJ Elektronik
Indonesia, a subsidiary of LJ Elektronik GmbH of Germany, said
the firm moved to the German Center in November last year mainly
because it was a convenient location with a more healthier
environment.
"Here, we're free from any possible riots and most of all
macet (traffic congestion)," she told the Post.
The company previously assembled products of mainly telephone
cables at a factory in Kapuk, North Jakarta, after purchasing
cable from Bandung and other related items from overseas to
export to Germany.
"It was a typical factory that was unhealthy and had a crowded
workplace and surroundings," said Ita, a senior employee at the
three-year-old company.
"Here, we feel that we're working at an office instead of a
factory," she said.
Sautter said the German Center, about a 30-minute drive from
Jakarta, is designed for companies that want to manufacture,
assemble and export products.
"All business activities can be done here," he said.
The center also provides information for businesspeople who
want to establish ventures in local markets.
Erected on 15,000 square meters, the building was constructed
from May 1997 to late 1998 by PT Econ Construction under the
supervision of ICM of Germany. At least 50 percent of the
materials were imported from Germany.
Sautter said the center was ideally aimed as a bridge between
Indonesia and Germany and should be 75 percent occupied by German
foreign investors.
"But we of course cannot drag them all here," he said.
He estimated that the building, selling at Rp 44,000 per
square meter, would be fully occupied by the end of next year.
The center was inaugurated on Feb. 28 by visiting Baden-
Wurttemberg Prime Minister Erwin Teufel in a ceremony attended by
President B.J. Habibie and Germany's Minister for Economics and
Technology Affairs Werner Muller. (bsr)