Jaya set to produce elevators

JAKARTA (JP): PT Pembangunan Jaya and PT Jaya Teknik Indonesia, subsidiaries of the Jaya Group, have joined Japan's Mitsubishi Electric Corporation to be the first elevator and escalator manufacturer in the country.

The new company, PT Mitsubishi Jaya Elevator and Escalator, started operation of its manufacturing plant yesterday at the integrated industrial estate in Karawang, West Java.

The plant, built on a 20,000 square meter plot with an initial investment of about US$5.4 million, will be able to produce 460 elevators and escalators a year. The joint venture will produce 300 elevators and escalators in the first year.

Mitsubishi Jaya's president Kunihiro Hattori said yesterday the escalators and elevators would initially be sold in the domestic market. The company would export the products in the future, he said.

"Indonesia needs about 1,200 elevators and escalators for the increasing number of building constructions," Hattori said, adding demand would likely increase.

He said Mitsubishi had chosen Pembangunan Jaya and Jaya Teknik as its partner because the companies had been distributing Mitsubishi's elevators and escalators in the country since 1971.

He said both companies successfully had the biggest market share in elevators and escalators in the country.

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation claimed to have made the world's fastest elevator in Yokohama Landmark Tower in Japan. (das)