Sinar Mas Group plans major China investment

Sinar Mas Group plans major China investment

SHANGHAI (AFP): Indonesia's Sinar Mas Group, one of the
world's biggest Chinese-owned companies, said Saturday it plans
to invest three to five billion dollars in China in the next
three to five years.

Sinar Mas director Frankle Widjaja told reporters that the
bulk of the investment would be in pulp and paper projects though
the group's New York-listed subsidiary Asia Pulp and Paper
Company.

The company is already the largest single pulp and paper
manufacturer in China with a 600,000-ton annual capacity plant in
Ningbo in eastern Zhejiang province.

A new plant was being built in Zhenjiang in eastern Jiangsu
province which would produce 1.5 million tons of pulp and paper
when completed in two years, Muktar Widjaja, another company
director, said.

Muktar Widjaja said the company was applying for approval to
double production at its Ningbo plant and to build a
1.15-million-ton plant in southern Hainan island where it planned
to plant 300,000 hectares (741,000 acres) of trees.

When the plants came onstream, the group would be able to
supply 30 to 40 percent of China's pulp and paper needs, he said,
adding that market was growing at a rate of 10 to 20 percent
annually.

The Sinar Mas group is the largest pulp and paper producer in
Asia outside Japan.

The group Saturday broke ground on a 410-million dollar
commercial office tower in Shanghai's central business district
and opened the Shanghai representative office of its wholly-owned
Bank International Ningbo.

Frankle Widjaja said the group would provide equity financing
amounting to US$235 million for the building while the remaining
$175 million had been raised through a syndicated loan.

The 45-story Bund Finance Centre, located close to Shanghai's
waterfront Bund, is purpose-built to serve the financial and
business communities in Shanghai and was scheduled for completion
in the third quarter of 1999.

The building comprises 88,000 square metres (946,800 square
feet) of high quality office space including space for six retail
banking halls on its ground floor, a retail podium and service
apartments.

The project is being developed by Shanghai Golden Beach Real
Estate Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of SMG, which has a property
portfolio of about $1.5 billion worldwide.

The Sinar Mas Group, which was established in Jakarta about 40
years ago by Eka Tjipta Widjaja, has since grown to be the
seventh largest Chinese group in the world and one of two leading
companies in Indonesia.

The group, which has a net asset of about $15 billion and
employs 150,000 people worldwide, is involved in pulp and paper
manufacturing, financial services, agriculture and property
development.

Its investment in China has reached $3.5 billion in more than
200 enterprises and it plans to base its China headquarters in
Shanghai, officials said.