Prasidha Aneka Niaga expects 9.36% profit rise
JAKARTA (JP): PT Prasidha Aneka Niaga, a publicly listed exporter of agricultural commodities, expects to book a 9.36 percent increase in its net profits to Rp 29.2 billion (US$12.43 million) this year from estimated total sales of Rp 792 billion.
"We foresee this year will be brighter than last year for our company and subsidiaries," Prasidha Aneka's president, Mansjur Tandiono, announced after his company's extraordinary shareholders meeting yesterday.
Listed on the Jakarta Stock Exchange in 1994 under the classification of consumer goods industry, Prasidha Aneka's main lines of business are in processing and trading of agricultural commodities, including coffee, rubber particles, tapioca chips and pellets, cocoa, pepper and vanilla.
Saying that this year's coffee harvest in Indonesia will be very good, he estimated that his company will be able to increase its coffee export by 20 percent to 100,000 tons this year. Coffee accounted for more than 60 percent of the company's total sales last year.
Last year the company's coffee exports were recorded to be only 76,133 tons at an average price of $2.25.
Asked about the average price of coffee on the world market this year, he said that he expects the price to decrease from $2.25 per kilogram last year to $1.80 per kg this year.
"But the Association of Coffee Producing Countries changed its retention system to an export program in its international meeting recently in London. By the new system, coffee producing countries will be free to export their produce to any market they like," he said.
According to him, as a member of the Association of Coffee Producing Countries, Indonesia last year was asked to put some 35,000 tons of its coffee production under an agreed retention scheme, which required every producing country to retain a portion of its coffee production and not export it. Of the 35,000 tons, some 8,000 tons were owned by Prasidha Aneka.
Prasidha Aneka's vice chief commissioner, Oesman Soedargo, who is also the chairman of Association of Indonesian Coffee Exporters, said that the Association of Coffee Producing Countries' new export program will enable exporting companies like Prasidha Aneka to expand their coffee sales.
"The profit increase of Prasidha Aneka this year will be derived from expanding its coffee export," he said.
According to him, Indonesia's export of coffee this year will amount to 360,000 tons.
Transformation
The extraordinary shareholders meeting approved the company's program to transform its trading business into manufacturing food products.
Mansjur said that his company in the near future will sign cooperation agreements with companies of Japan, Australia and China to process rubber, pepper and coffee.
On Thursday, Prasidha Aneka's subsidiary PT Aneka Bumi Pratama will sign a memorandum of understanding with Itochu Corporation of Japan to set up a joint venture company.
"This joint venture will build several rubber processing plants in South Sumatra," he said. He did not elaborate.
However, he did say that total investment for the plants will be Rp 8.2 billion. "Aneka Bumi Pratama will have a stake of 51 percent in the joint venture, while the Japanese company will own 49 percent," he said.
He said that his company will also set up a coffee-processing plant in China to produce instant coffee, but he refused to mention the amount of investment and production in the country.
"Can you imagine if only 10 percent of China's 1.2 billion population drank our coffee every morning?. The market there holds a bright prospect for us," he concluded. (13)