PT Bukaka to supply components for Timor car

PT Bukaka to supply components for Timor car

JAKARTA (JP): The publicly-listed engineering and
manufacturing firm PT Bukaka Teknik Utama has agreed to become a
component supplier for PT Timor Putra Nasional.

"I have talked to Pak Tommy and he agreed that we will supply
components for the Timor car," Bukaka's president, Fadel
Muhammad, said before attending a meeting between business and
Ministry of Industry and Trade officials.

President Soeharto's youngest son Hutomo Mandala Putra, known
as Tommy, is chairman of the well-diversified Humpuss Group which
controls PT Timor Putra Nasional.

Timor Putra, the only car firm in Indonesia that has received
tax and tariff breaks from the government, will develop a sedan
under the Indonesian brand name Timor in cooperation with Kia
Motors Corp. of South Korea.

Fadel said he has formed a team that soon will go to South
Korea and study the components needed.

"They have agreed to send us the blueprint for the Timor car,"
Fadel said.

He said his company has earmarked between US$20 million and
$30 million to produce transmissions, casting and forging
components for the Timor car.

"We have one of the largest forging and casting facilities in
Asia, and we have the rights to produce whatever brands," Fadel
said.

When asked, Fadel said that local component firms have the
capacity to back production of the Timor car. "I believe that
Timor Putra can meet the local content requirements set by the
government."

The government has given Timor Putra three years to develop a
national car, which has to contain local components of 20 percent
by the end of the first year, 40 percent by the end of the second
year and 60 percent by the end of the third year.

Industry analysts have said that local vendors are too weak to
support production of the Timor because most manufacture
components for commercial vehicles, not passenger cars.

Chairman of the Indonesian Automotive Industry Association
Herman Z. Latif said that even if all the existing local vendors
are involved, they will contribute not more than 13 percent of
the necessary components.

"I disagree with them. Make a list of the needed components,
then make the matrix and see what components can be made
locally," Fadel said.

"Bukaka, for instance, is currently producing a gear box for
crude oil pumping units. This gear box can be modified to make
various car components," he continued. (rid)