Railway equipment producer progress

Railway equipment producer progress

MADIUN, East Java (JP): PT Industri Kereta Api (Inka), the state-owned railway equipment producer, established in 1981, has reported significant business progress after making a profit for the first time in 1992.

Inka's president, Istantoro, said here on Wednesday that the company's revenues had increased steadily from Rp 28.4 billion (US$12.9 million) in 1992 to Rp 47 billion in 1993 and to Rp 65 billion in 1994.

"Inka's profits also increased steadily in line with the growth of its revenues because it achieved a profit margin of five percent from its revenues," he told reporters visiting the company's industrial complex together with Minister of Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto.

Istantoro said Inka expects Rp 75.4 billion in revenues this year.

He said the company's prospects for the future were bright because it was supporting the country's railway transportation system, which is now being promoted by the government.

The executive said that, for example, his company was now constructing railway cars for the state railway company Perumka's JS-950 express trains, which will link Jakarta and the East Javanese capital city of Surabaya within nine hours.

The JS-950 trains, whose introduction has been in preparation since 1993 by Perumka and Inka, are scheduled to start operating in August of this year, when Indonesia celebrates its 50th anniversary.

Inka is currently testing the JS-950 cars on tracks between Madiun and Solo in Central Java.

Istantoro said that the Jakarta-Surabaya route was very profitable because the load factor of trains serving the route is currently 85 percent on average.

He said that each of the JS-950 trains will consist of eight first-class 50-seat passenger cars, one grill car and one power- generation car.

Passengers will enjoy a comfortable ride as the cars' interiors will be ergonomically designed with fiberglass- reinforced plastic module panels, he said.

He said similar trains will be used on the Jakarta-Bandung, Jakarta-Yogyakarta and Jakarta-Semarang routes.

Meanwhile, Minister of Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto said that the government was now accelerating work on the doubling of the railway tracks on the Jakarta-Cirebon-Semarang-Surabaya and Bandung-Purwokerto-Yogyakarta-Surabaya routes.

Istantoro said that his company, which is currently participating in a tender for train project in Bangladesh, will develop push-pull locomotives with electric-diesel engines in the future. (icn)