Hinduja Group ties up with Multi Eka Karma

Hinduja Group ties up with Multi Eka Karma

JAKARTA (JP): The London-based Hinduja Group, which last year
booked around US$15 billion in total turnovers, has chosen PT
Multi Eka Karma, the investment holding company of the General
Sudirman Foundation, as its strategic partner to develop
investment projects in Indonesia.

"Hinduja is greatly interested in several of the projects we
have been developing over the past two years," said Soetjahjo
Hasnoputro, the vice president of Multi Eka Karma, before
welcoming a 20-member IndusInd delegation here yesterday.

The high-powered business delegation, which is making a two-
day visit, is led by Srichand P. Hinduja, chairman of the Hinduja
Group, which has large stakes in oil, power generation,
information technology and media communications, automobile and
transport, chemical, pharmaceutical and banking.

The delegation, besides representing the Hinduja Group, also
includes top executives of the IndusInd Group and Finolex Group
and several other major Indian conglomerates.

"We feel honored to have been selected by Hinduja as its
strategic partner because we are developing a number of projects
in telecommunications, media communications, power generation,
mining, lube oil and several other areas of infrastructure,"
added Soetjahjo.

The General Sudirman Foundation, the founder and owner of PT
Multi Eka Karma, was set up in December, 1989, by the minister of
defense and security and the armed forces commander in order to
help the government improve the social welfare of armed forces
members.

He said Multi Eka Karma has signed a cooperation agreement
with the Hinduja Group as an umbrella pact for their business
partnerships in various investment projects.

The cooperation, according to Multi Eka Karma's Chief
Operating Officer Sunil H. Bharwani, will "provide us with access
to technology, financing and the international market."

Multi Eka Karma acts as the catalyst for Hinduja to facilitate
its investments in Indonesia's resources and Hinduja in turn
serves as the catalyst for Multi Eka to gain an international
competitive edge, Soetjahjo added.

"For example, we are preparing a $50 million lube oil blending
plant at Cilegon, West Java, with a designed capacity of 25,000
kiloliters a year and Gulf Oil International, a subsidiary of
Hinduja, will be one of the partners" Soetjahjo said.

The other shareholding partner in the lube oil plant is PT
Elnusa, a subsidiary of the state-owned Pertamina oil company,
which is also active in telecommunications and general
contracting businesses.

He said Multi Eka is developing several other projects in
cooperation with other international companies.

One of them is the diamond mining and jewelry manufacturing
venture in Martapura, S. Kalimantan, in a joint venture with the
B.Vijay Group, one of the world's largest diamond manufacturers.

"We are also exploring geothermal steam for power generation
in the Jambi province in cooperation with Caithnness Energy,"
Soetjahjo said.

Multi Eka, he added, has also signed cooperation agreements
with PT Satelindo, one of the providers of international
telecommunications services and global system for mobile
communications (GSM). The cooperation accords will establish
local, multi-point distribution systems, the infrastructure,
marketing and distribution of Satelindo's GSM network as well as
a satellite backbone communications technology network. (vin)