Jakarta, June 3 (Antara) - Aluminum manufacturer PT Indonesia Asahan
Aluminium (Inalum) in Asahan, North Sumatra, has been registering better
performance than it did when it was operated by a Japanese joint
venture firm.
It had been operated by Japan, as the majority shareholder, since 1976
through Nippon Asahan Aluminium (NAA) with 12 private Japanese firms as
part of the joint venture.
The Indonesian government took over Inalum after its contract with the Japanese side expired on October 31, 2013.
Hj Meilizar Latif, a member of North Sumatra's Legislative Assembly
(DPRD), said in 2012, that Inalum, with an annual production capacity of
230 thousand-240 thousand tons, reported a profit of US$12 million in
2010, while its debt burden reached US$70 million.
After it was taken over by Indonesia, the company seems to have
increased its production. During the April-December 2014 period, it was
able to double its profits as compared to the corresponding period in
the previous fiscal year.
"The company booked a net profit of US$128.7 million, up significantly
by 201 percent from US$64 million in the fiscal year 2013," Winardi, the
president director of PT Inalum, noted in a written statement on
Monday, last week.
He remarked that the increase in PT Inalum's performance was supported
by safe and controlled operations, with Lake Toba's surface elevation at
904.36 meters above sea level. The company was able to operate about
501 of its 510 units of smelting furnaces. In 2014, the company's aluminum ingot production reached 199,692 tons, up 4.1 percent from that in 2013.
With
regard to the sales of its aluminum ingots, PT Inalum sold 142,925 tons
(71.5 percent), up 171.1 percent as compared to 83,362 tons recorded in
the same period in 2013.
However, its ingot exports in the same period were recorded at 54
thousand tons (28 percent), down 47 percent from the previous year's
107,001 tons when it was still a foreign capital investment firm.
The
increase in the domestic sales indicated Inalum's commitment to advance
the downstream aluminum industries in Indonesia.
Based on its contribution to the state and according to the directives
of the shareholders, PT Inalum has also added dividend worth US$10
million to the government's portion in December 2014 and has added
another interim dividend valued at US$90 million in the book year of
2014.
PT Inalum will continue to maintain its commitment shown in 2014, which
is to increase its participation in empowering the people and the
surrounding community. It will provide scholarships worth more than Rp8
billion to students in North Sumatra for various levels of education
starting from elementary school (SD) to the graduate level (S1) in
universities.
The
scholarships will be provided to students in the
districts/municipalities of Toba Samosir, Samosir, Dairi, Karo,
Simalungun, Humbang Hasundutan, Tapanuli Utara, and Tanjung Balai
Municipality.
The scholarships for the SD, lower secondary school (SMP), and upper
secondary school (SMA) students will be provided from June to August
2015, and those for university students will be handed over from August
to October 2015. The company registering a better performance
under an Indonesian management has been lauded by observers, including
the non-governmental organization, Indonesian Resources Studies (IRESS).
The IRESS has praised the performance of PT Inalum during the
April-December 2014 period, as the company was able to double its
profits as compared to that in the previous fiscal year.
"The increase in net profit of PT Inalum indicates that Indonesians in
the company improved its management," Executive Director of IRESS Marwan
Batubara said in a written statement on Tuesday.
The improvement in Inalum's performance is reflected in its production
of tin ingot, which reached 199,692 tons, recording a 4.1 percent
increase from 190,363 tons produced in the corresponding period in 2013,
he pointed out.
Batubara affirmed that Inalum's success was no easy feat, considering
the performance of the managers of the company. This means that Inalum
made a series of fundamental improvements that enabled the company to
earn a significant net profit.
"Of course, it is expected that it will be able to increase it further in the future," Batubara remarked.
He also hopes that the firm does not become complacent with this achievement.
In
future, Inalum should implement the improvements and developments that
it has been planning. It must raise the capacity of its generators and
improve its aging smelters.
"It should improve and renovate infrastructure and equipment to support
the company's performance ahead," Batubara emphasized.
Moreover, he admitted that he did not earlier believe whether the
company would be able to make improvements, as it was difficult to earn
high profits when it was still managed by Japan.
"I believe that the government should reevaluate the last management to
identify reasons for why the profits in the past did reach this level,"
he noted.
The House of Representatives (DPR) agreed in October last year to hand
over PT Inalum's management to the State-Owned Enterprises (SOE)
Ministry following the government's decision to acquire it after three
years of negotiations with the Japanese government.
The House made the decision in its joint meeting with all parties, as
the government decided not to extend the expired contract of PT Inalum,
an aluminum joint venture between Indonesia and Japan in which Indonesia
held 41.13 percent of the company's shares and Japan owned 58.87
percent.
The project began operating on January 6, 1976, based on an agreement
signed on July 7, 1975, that expired on October 31, 2013.
Japan, with 12 private Japanese firms in the joint venture, is the
majority shareholder through NAA. Fifty percent of NAA's shares are
controlled by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), which
represents the Japanese government, while the remaining 50 percent are
owned by private Japanese firms such as Sumitomo Chemical Company Ltd,
Sumitomo Shoi Kaisha Ltd, and Nippon Light Metal Co. Ltd. ***3***
(T.A014/INE/O001) EDITED BY INE
(T.A014/A/BESSR/O. Tamindael) 03-06-2015 12:13: |
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