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)