Inhutani V to raise profit

JAKARTA (JP): State-owned PT Inhutani V aims at increasing its pretax profit this year by 10 percent to 15 percent over the Rp 11 billion (US$4.78 million) achieved last year.

Inhutani V President M. Toha said last year's profit was higher than the Rp 8.64 billion targeted.

Toha said the profit increase could be expected from prices of wood which had lately shown signs of improvement.

Toha was quoted by Antara as saying that Inhutani V's sales last year reached Rp 40 billion.

Inhutani V, which was founded in 1991, has operations in South Sumatra, Jambi, Bengkulu and Lampung.

It covers a working area of about 958,000 hectares and was recently ordered by the government to take over the management of 22 private concessionaires and establish joint ventures with four private concessionaires, covering a total of 1.84 million hectares of forests. (pwn)