PT Indosat cancels plan to sell shares

JAKARTA (JP): State-owned international telecommunications firm PT Indosat has canceled its plan to sell some of its shares in digital cellular operator PT Telkomsel, sources said yesterday.

Telecommunications industry sources said the plan was scrapped because Telkomsel had good prospects and could contribute to Indosat's future revenue.

In April last year Indosat announced it would sell 7.1 percent of its Telkomsel shares.

Telkomsel, which operates the global system of mobile telecommunications (GSM), is 42.72 percent owned by state-owned domestic telecommunications firm Telkom, 35 percent by Indosat, 17.28 percent by the Netherlands' PTT Telecom and 5 percent by Setiawan Djody's PT Setdco Megacell Asia.

Telkomsel is the only GSM operator which covers every Indonesian province. The company has about 220,000 customers and expects to have 400,000 by the end of the year.

Indosat executives refused to comment but Indosat holds its annual general meeting next month where questions may be asked.

The president of Telkomsel, Koesmarihati Sugondo, said recently her company, with total assets of Rp 1.7 trillion and equity of Rp 1.4 trillion, booked an Rp 50 million inaugural profit last year.

Koesmarihati said yesterday she did not know Indosat was going to cancel its plan to sell some of its stake in Telkomsel.

Indosat had said the funds raised by selling 2.5 percent of Telkomsel would be used to finance its diversification into other telecommunications businesses.

Vietnam

Indosat executive Steve Yanuar said his company planned to participate in a telecommunications project in Vietnam.

He said Vietnam had offered a telecommunications project involving 400,000 fixed-telephone lines and 200,000 GSM lines, and facilities for 100,000 radio pagers and international call service.

"Vietnam offered the project under a scheme called the business cooperation contract for an extendible 30-year period."

He said Indosat would set up a consortium with other partners to participate in tenders expected to be held later this year.

Yanuar, who is also a top executive at Indosat subsidiary Camintel, said Indosat would compete with other consortiums like Thailand's Jasmine, Teledenmark and other firms.

Camintel is a Cambodian-based firm 49 percent owned by Indosat and 51 percent by the Cambodian Ministry of Post and Telecommunications.

Camintel was established in 1994 to repair and renovate Cambodia's telecommunications network. (icn)