Ramayana plans to open 10 new outlets this year

JAKARTA (JP): The publicly-listed department store chain, PT Ramayana Lestari Sentosa, plans to open 10 new outlets in the country this year as part of its expansion program.

Company corporate secretary Richard Sentosa said that two of the planned outlets would be located in Ciledug and Mauk, Tangerang to replace old stores ravaged by fires during riots in May, 1998.

The other one would be opened in Jakarta and the remaining seven would be built outside Java, he added.

"We receive more and more demand in those provinces' retail sectors," he told reporters after the annual shareholders general meeting and extraordinary shareholders general meeting.

The Indonesian Retail Association also projects retail sales will increase 17 percent to Rp 33 trillion this year from Rp 28 trillion last year.

Richard said that outside Java, the demand had also indicated a strong recovery due to the increase in exports of small and medium-scale companies.

He said that the company would continue to expand its activities to cities or major towns outside Java. "We have allocated Rp 300 billion (US$26.80 million) for this year's expansion," Richard said.

According to him, Ramayana would also open 10 outlets next year, more than half of them would be located outside Java.

At present, Ramayana operates 72 outlets, with total space measuring about 399,457 square meters.

Richard also said that the company expected to book a 24 percent increase in net profits to Rp 318.6 billion this year from Rp 257.2 billion last year.

It also projected its sales would increase by 23 percent to Rp 2.9 trillion in 2001, compared with Rp 2.3 trillion in 2000, he said.

From January to May, the company's sales surged only 6 percent to Rp 763 billion from Rp 715 billion in the same period last year, he said.

"However, with the expansion plan, we hope we're still able to meet this year's target," he said.

In the meeting, shareholders approved the company's proposal to pay dividends of Rp 75 per share for 2000.

The shareholders also agreed with the plan to increase the company's capital by 5 percent of the 1.4 billion company shares.

"Those 70 million new shares will be offered to the company's employees through an employee stock option plan," he added.(05)