Sukanto to replace Polar at Indorayon

JAKARTA (JP): Tycoon Sukanto Tanoto will take over as president of pulp and rayon fiber firm PT Inti Indorayon Utama following the death of his younger brother Polar Yanto Tanoto in an air crash in North Sumatra last Friday.

Indorayon's parent company, Raja Garuda Mas International, said that Sukanto would be assisted at Indorayon by managing director Roland Mazery and the managing director of PT Riau Pulp, another Raja Garuda Mas subsidiary, Rune Ingvarson.

Former company president Polar Yanto Tanoto was on the Garuda Indonesia airlines Airbus A-300 which crashed near Medan, killing all 234 people on board, Antara reported Saturday.

He was returning from Jakarta where he had been to accept a Primaniyarta award for his company's export performance.

Inti Indorayon produces 220,000 tons of pulp and 60,000 tons of rayon a year from its plant in Porsea, North Sumatra. It also sells wood to match and chopstick factories in North Sumatra.

It exports 70 percent of the output to Southeast Asian countries and China.

Sukanto, founder and head of the Raja Garuda Mas group, owns 24.3 percent of PT Inti Indorayon Utama which was listed on the Jakarta Stock Exchange in 1991. (rid)