Noodle price maintained

JAKARTA (JP): PT Indofood Sukses Makmur announced yesterday that this week's increase in the price of flour would not cause the company to raise the price of its instant noodles.

Indofood's chief executive officer, Eva Riyanti Hutapea, said yesterday the 3.3 percent increase in the flour price imposed by the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) -- raising the price from Rp 677.98 (29 U.S. cents) to Rp 700.42 per kg -- was still within the company's "tolerable limit".

Hutapea said that maintaining the price of noodles would not affect the company's profitability because the higher flour price would be offset by efficiency improvement.

"By increasing efficiency, the company will not suffer any profit losses which may otherwise be caused by the higher flour price. This way, there will also be no affect on the overall performance of Indofood," Hutapea said. (pwn)