Govt raises radio paging target

Govt raises radio paging target

JAKARTA (JP): The government revised yesterday its target of
radio paging subscribers from one million to three million within
the ongoing Sixth Five-Year Development Plan period which will
end in March 1998.

"I think one million is too small as we can focus on expanding
the pager subscription market. Radio paging operators can
penetrate the segments of students, police officers, farmers and
journalists," Minister of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications
Joop Ave said in his speech at a ceremony for the installation of
the executive board of the newly-established Indonesian
Association of Pager Operators.

He urged pager operators to compete in a fair way by providing
more varieties of products at cheaper prices.

Just as in the business of cellular mobile telephone handsets,
pagers are still considered as luxury products. Levies on the
sales of pagers raise their prices by 40 percent from their
import prices.

Joop suggested that Indonesian companies assemble radio pagers
to support the increasing demand for such equipment.

He said that businessmen can totally cooperate with foreign
partners to improve their businesses, but he suggested that they
also involve small-scale businesses and cooperatives.

"In the near future I will issue a decree that will classify
the radio paging service as a business for small and medium-scale
enterprises," he said.

Meanwhile, the association's chairman Pong Prasetyo said that
there are now some 400,000 pager subscribers in the country. The
number is expected to reach one million by the end of this year.

In addition to Pong, H. Sukoyo was installed yesterday as the
association's secretary-general, Sutisnawan as treasurer while
Buyung Indrajaya as the association's spokesman. (icn)