Indosat ties up with Mega Asia

Indosat ties up with Mega Asia

JAKARTA: Telecommunications firm Indosat signed on Wednesday a
preliminary agreement with Mega Asia Consortium for the
development of a fixed wireless network in Jakarta and Surabaya
over the next three years.

Under the preliminary agreement, the consortium will develop
450,000 fixed wireless lines in Jakarta and surrounding areas and
another 250,000 lines in Surabaya and surrounding areas during
the three-year period, Indosat said in a statement.

The consortium comprises Bakrie Communication Company, Tomen
Corporation, PT Asiabumi Piramida and PT Saranainsan Muda
Selaras.

The consortium will secure its own finances to build the
network based on Indosat's license.

It will operate the network for about 10 years, with the
revenue to be shared with Indosat. After 10 years of operation,
the consortium will transfer the network to Indosat.

"The revenue-sharing contract period could be longer or
shorter, depending on the return on the project's investment,"
Indosat said.

The project will use CDMA 2000-1X technology. The capital
expenditure for the project is estimated at US$164 per line or
about $115 million for the total 700,000 lines. -- JP

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New firm buys out M-Web assets
JP/14/Indo

New firm buys out M-Web assets

JAKARTA: PT Indonesia Media Technologies (IMF), a newly-formed
media technology company, has acquired Astaga.com, Kafegaul.com,
satunet.com and other key assets owned by PT M-Web Indonesia,
which has decided to pull out of Indonesia.

IMT was formed by a group of local and foreign technology
investors and entrepreneurs to capitalize on the business built
up by M-Web over the last three years, IMT said in a statement on
Tuesday.

With the acquisition, IMT said it will be the new owner of the
three websites and shall continue providing mobile- and media-
related services.

South Africa-based M-Web, which until last year was the
country's largest Internet firm, has sold all its assets in
Indonesia on sagging confidence in the prospects for Indonesia's
internet industry.

"IMT is poised to capitalize on the growing media technology
and mobile service market," company president and CEO David Burke
said. -- JP

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Garuda receives award from Airbus
JP/14/Indo

Garuda receives award from Airbus

JAKARTA: National flag-carrier Garuda Indonesia has received
an award from Europe aircraft maker Airbus Industrie for its
performance in operating A-330 aircraft.

Garuda said in a statement that the Operational Reliability
Award was delivered by Airbus vice president for A-330/A-340
program John Grother to Garuda's technical director Richard B.S.
here on Monday.

The "dispatch reliability" of six A-330 aircraft now being
operated by Garuda reached 98.58 percent in 2002, the company
said, adding this had contributed to the airline's punctuality.

Garuda has been operating the six aircraft since December
1996. It now uses the aircraft to serve regional destinations,
including Japan (Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka), Australia
(Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Melbourne, Sydney), China (Guangzhou,
Shanghai). -- JP

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Indonesian airline opens flights to Ipoh
JP/14/Indo

Indonesian airline opens flights to Ipoh

JAKARTA: Indonesia's Jatayu Airlines has opened a new route
linking Medan in North Sumatra to the north Malaysian city of
Ipoh, a report said Wednesday.

A Boeing 737-200 will fly the route on Tuesdays, Thursdays and
Saturdays, the manager of Jatayu's Medan office, Kanida, told the
state Antara news agency.

The first flight to Ipoh took off on Tuesday, Kanida said.
Jatayu already has daily flights linking Medan to another
Malaysian destination, Penang. -- AFP

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BHP Steel expands Asia production
JP/14/Indo

BHP Steel expands Asia production

MELBOURNE: BHP Steel Ltd. has opened two new plants in China,
lifting its Asian network to 21 plants, The Age newspaper reports
on Wednesday.

One of the new roll-forming plants is near Beijing, located to
capitalize on the construction activity prompted by the 2008
Olympic Games, while the second plant is based in the western
province of Sichuan.

The plants draw high-value-added feedstock from BHP Steel's
three Asian painting and coating mills in Malaysia, Thailand and
Indonesia, the newspaper reported. -- Dow Jones

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Shell evacuates staff from Gulf
JP/14/Indo

Shell evacuates staff from Gulf

TEHRAN: Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch/Shell pulled 260
Iranian and expatriate staff out of the Sorush and Nowruz
oilfields in the northern Gulf late Tuesday because of the
looming U.S.-led war on Iraq, a company spokesman told AFP.

"Iranian staff were brought ashore in Iran while our foreign
employees were sent to Dubai," said Ali Kalali, without
indicating how many of the personnel were expatriates.

The spokesman said the company's operations in the two
offshore fields would resume as soon as security conditions
permitted. -- AFP

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Holcim suffers 37.7% decline in profit
JP/14/Indo

Holcim suffers 37.7% decline in profit

ZURICH: The Swiss cement giant, Holcim, announced on Wednesday
a 37.7 percent drop in net profit for 2002 to 506 million Swiss
francs (349 million euros).

Turnover fell by 4.6 percent to 13 billion Swiss francs, the
group said in a statement.

Holcim, one of the world's largest cement groups, blamed its
results on a provision of 120 million Swiss francs for pending
legal proceedings by the anti-cartel authority in Germany, write-
offs of CHF 63 million in Argentina as well as on its investment
in the airline 'Swiss'.

Holcim employed 51,115 people worldwide at the end of 2002,
and increase of 7.9 percent over the previous year.

The cement group, which is heavily dependent on the state of
the construction industry, indicated it was ready to weather
economic conditions in 2003.

"Thanks to the restructuring measures implemented, Holcim is
well equipped to achieve robust results even if the global
economy takes a further turn for the worse," it said. -- AFP