Telkom, Agis tie up

JAKARTA (JP): Listed state-owned telecommunications operator PT Telkom Indonesia signed a cooperation contract on Monday with publicly listed electronics distributor PT Artha Graha Investama Sentral (Agis) to provide the latter with electronic commerce service.

Telkom president A.A. Nasution said the service would enable Agis to sell its products to customers in various areas at any time of the day through Telkom's Internet commerce facility.

"This business-to-customer internet commerce service is our new business launched early this year. It grew quite slowly so far as the demand has been still weak. But we'll keep developing this business because it will be a very promising one in the next five to ten years," he said.

Telkom has signed at least 20 contracts with local retailers to provide mostly business-to-customer internet commerce service.

Telkom said each of the retailer partners booked between five to 10 transactions worth about Rp 200,000 (US$28) on average per day through the internet commerce system.

Telkom charges the retailers with, among other things, a transaction fee of about 4 percent of the transaction value and a monthly virtual mail subscription. (cst)