Soeharto, Goh to open Bintan tourist resort

JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto and Singaporean Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong will officially inaugurate the 23,000- hectare Bintan Beach International Resort in the northern part of Bintan, an island in Riau province, on June 18.

"The construction of this megatourism project hasn't yet been completed. But we've already developed more than 60 percent of the would-be largest integrated tourism resort in Asia," said Mary Quah, the marketing manager of Bintan Resort Management Pte. Ltd, in a press conference here yesterday.

Mary noted that Bintan Resort Management, which was set up in 1993 to manage the resort, is 60 percent owned by an Indonesian consortium and 40 percent by a Singaporean consortium.

The Indonesian consortium is comprised of the PT Salim Group, PT Suakajaya Indowahana, the Riau provincial administration and the Indonesian Navy Foundation.

The Singaporean consortium consists of Singapore Technologies Industrial Ltd,, the Development Bank of Singapore, Overseas- Chinese Banking Corporation, Overseas Union Bank, UOL Equity Investments, Straits Steamship Land, Tropical Resorts and KMP Bincorp Investments.

Announcing that the Bintan tourism project will be completed in the 2000s, Mary said that the project's total investment will reach S$3.5 billion (US$2.8 billion).

"Until now, we've already spent about S$180 million for the infrastructure construction and $1.66 billion for the tourist resort's development," she said.

According to Mary, last year there were only 83 rooms available at the resort. She estimated that this year, the number of rooms available will reach 555, mostly luxury class. Next year, the number of rooms will total 1,687, and in 2000 will reach 3,500.

Mary pointed out that the number of tourists to Bintan last year reached 31,182, mostly from Singapore. As of June of this year, more than 32,000 tourists have visited the island.

"We expect to have 200,000 visitors this year," she said, adding that the resort is projected to accommodate up to 1.5 million visitors in the year 2000. (13)