RI, Russian firms sign $30 million barter deal

JAKARTA (JP): Tirtamas Comexindo and Insani Cooperative have secured a barter deal worth US$30 million from Russian Geo Spectrum.

Director General of Small and Medium Enterprises Cacuk Sudariyanto said Tirtamas and Insani, under the agreement signed on Friday, would sell farm products in exchange for fertilizer from the Russian firm.

"The agreement indicates that Indonesian small and medium companies can compete in the international market," Cacuk said after witnessing the signing of the agreement.

Tirtamas' president Hashim S. Djojohadikusumo said that the barter arrangement would cover almost all types of commodities, but in the initial stage, it would be focused mainly on bartering Russian fertilizers for Indonesian timber, agriculture and textile products.

"We expect the Russians to trade their KCl (potassium chloride) fertilizers and other chemical products for our tea, rubber, crude palm oil (CPO) and its derivatives, textiles and textile products. They also want our wood and wood-related products, including pulp and paper products," he said.

Hashim said that Indonesia suffered a shortage of KCl fertilizers amounting to between 900,000 and one million metric tons per year.

"Russia is the world's number one KCl fertilizer producer. We hope the imported KCl from Russia will encourage our farmers to boost agricultural production," he said.

Geo Spectrum's director Mikhail V. Kouritsyn said that Indonesian goods, such as textiles, garments, sports shoes, condoms, gloves, wooden furniture, rattan and medicines products are currently very popular in Russia.

"Russians are very fond of Indonesian products. In Moscow, there are several stores specializing in Indonesian goods and they sell well," he said.

Kouritsyn added that estate-crop products, especially tea and natural rubber, have good prospects in the Russian market.

Russia, he said, needed 220,000 tons of tea annually, and more than 10 percent of this is supplied by Indonesia.

Kouritsyn said that the newly signed barter deal covered the purchase of 10,000 tons of Indonesian black tea and 100,000 tons of CPO and its byproducts.

Cacuk said the countertrade deal followed three agreements, on technical cooperation, on trade and on the avoidance of double taxation, signed by Indonesian Minister of Industry and Trade Ramelan and his visiting counterpart Georgy V. Gabuniya later in the day.

Data from the Ministry of Industry and Trade shows that in the January to October period of 1998, total trade volume between the two countries reached US$115.4 million, down from $282.2 million for the same period in 1997.

Indonesia suffered a $38.4 million deficit in its bilateral trade with Russia in the first three quarters of 1998, with exports reaching $38.5 million and imports totaling $76.9 million.

During the same period in 1997, imports from Russia reached $210.9 million, while exports from Indonesia to that country reached $71.3 million.

Indonesia's exports mostly comprised agricultural products including natural rubber, tropical oil, cocoa and tea as well as consumer goods like textiles, garments and footwear.

Indonesian imports from Russia are mostly raw materials such as ferrous and nonferrous metal products, fertilizers and chemical products. (gis)