Metro opens pager plant

JAKARTA (JP): PT Metro Media Raya, a subsidiary of PT Motorollain Corp, said yesterday it had spent about Rp 10 billion (US$4.2 million) building its pager factory in Pondok Cabe, South Jakarta.

Company executive Budyanta Surjaputra said the country's first pager factory could produce 15,600 pagers a month.

The pagers would be sold domestically and exported to Cambodia, Vietnam and China, Budyanta Surjaputra was quoted by Antara as saying.

The Ministry of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications' telecommunication guidance director, Eman Sumantri, who dedicated the factory yesterday, hoped the factory would cut the price of pagers and increase their use.

Metro's Falcon pager costs between US$80 and $90. Imported pagers cost more than $130.

About 450,000 pagers have been sold domestically since they were introduced in 1976.

Eman said the government projected there would be 500,000 pager users by the end of the Sixth Five-Year Development Plan in 1999. (jsk)