More phones for Sumatra

JAKARTA (JP): PT Pramindo Ikat Nusantara, a private company responsible for the development of telecommunications facilities in Sumatra, will install 100,000 new telephone lines by the end of this year, 33 percent more than its original target.

Pramindo, a joint venture between the Astra Group of Indonesia and France Cable et Radio, a subsidiary of France Telecom, is one of the five private firms awarded 15-year concessions by the state-owned PT Telkom to install a total of two million new telephone lines in five different areas of the country. Pramindo is required to install 516,487 new lines in Sumatra by 1999 and manage them along with the existing ones until 2010.

"The beginning of the construction program is ahead of schedule which, for the next two years, makes us very confident," France Telecom's group executive vice president for networks, Jean Yves Gouiffes, said yesterday.

He was in Indonesia for a five-day visit to review the progress of France Telecom's projects in the country.

Pramindo has secured a US$400 million finance package from 31 financial institutions, including the International Finance Corporation, to facilitate the Sumatra project. (icn)