Strike won't hurt local assembling of Cakra cars

JAKARTA (JP): The assembling of PT Citramobil Nasional's Nenggala and Cakra sedans, which use South Korea's Hyundai Motor Company technology, will not be effected by recent labor strikes in South Korea, a company executive said.

Lindarto Rahardjo, Citramobil's marketing manager, said over the weekend that Citramobil currently had enough spare parts and component supplies for six months of production.

Lindarto said the company would have no problem manufacturing of the sedans unless the strikes continued for longer than the next six months.

Citramobil is a subsidiary of the widely diversified Bimantara Group of companies, which is controlled by President Soeharto's second son, Bambang Trihatmodjo.

Nenggala and Cakra are the local brands of Hyundai's 1600cc and 1500cc sedans. The amount of imported components for the two currently reaches 80 percent and 89 percent, respectively.

The strikes, which were held by Hyundai's workers, had forced Hyundai to close down its factory, including its component- manufacturing plant.

Lindarto said Citramobil was planning to increase the monthly production of its Cakra sedans to 500, from the current level of 250.

For the Nenggala sedans, the company would keep production levels at a steady 150 to 200 per month, he said. (pwn)