Peruri to cooperate with foreign firms

JAKARTA (JP): State securities paper and bank note printing company Peruri will cooperate with foreign companies in building its new securities paper plant.

"The plant should have been established last year but since our former partner PT Tridaya could not realize the plan, we have to seek new partners," Peruri's president F.G Lesilolo said Thursday.

Establishment of a new plant, he added, was urgent to reduce operational costs because the price of imported securities paper had increased sharply with the collapse of the rupiah.

Lesilolo said the country did not have its own securities paper plant and still relied mainly on imports to meet local demand.

He said Peruri initially agreed to cooperate with PT Tridaya Esta, controlled by former president Soeharto's son Bambang Trihatmodjo, in establishing the plant but the latter pulled out due to financial problems.

Lesilolo said Kuwaiti-Malaysian and Chinese-German joint ventures won the tender to replace PT Tridaya.

He said the foreign partners would invest about US$100 million in the project, which is expected to produce 4,000 tons of securities paper per year.

Local demand for securities paper reaches that amount per year, he told Antara. (gis)