Ary Hermawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
In a bid to raise funds for the expansion of the country's expressway network, the government has decided to sell off the tollways operated by PT Jasa Marga, Vice President Jusuf Kalla says.
"We must speed up the construction of new expressways. To do so, we need to strengthen Jasa Marga financially. So, we are planning to sell its assets, including the turnpikes it operates, to raise the required funds," Kalla said after a limited Cabinet meeting at the headquarters of the Public Works Ministry.
At present, Jasa Marga operates 16 tollways, with the three longest being the Jakarta-Bogor expressway (46 kilometers), Jakarta-Cikampek expressway (72 kilometers) and the Cikampek-Padalarang (61 kilometers) expressway. Altogether, Jasa Marga operates some 456 kilometers of tollways across the country.
The sell-off will be launched "as soon as possible", Kalla said when asked by reporters, while refraining from specifying a date.
Public Works Minister Djoko Kirmanto said the most valuable tollway would be the first to be offered to investors. "The most productive one will be given priority," he said.
Indonesia has been trying to energize its economy by building more roads, railways and ports to reduce high transportation costs. "Transportation costs here are higher than in neighboring countries, where they have more developed expressway networks," Kalla said.
According to the Vice President, the speeding up of highway construction is a must. He said that the sell-off of Jasa Marga's expressways was needed to ensure that the government's target of building a 1,000-kilometer expressway stretching along Java's north coast within the three years up to 2010 could be achieved.
Djoko said that three domestic banks, Bank Mandiri, Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) and Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), had expressed a willingness to provide a total of Rp 15 trillion in loans to finance the expressway's construction.
The government had earlier announced a plan to divest between 30 and 35 percent of its shares in the tollway operator through an initial public offering (IPO), which was scheduled to be launched in the first semester of this year.
Jasa Marga president director Frans S. Sunito said the firm hoped to raise between Rp 2 trillion and Rp 3 trillion from the IPO. The fresh funds, he said, would be used to finance the building of three new tollways connecting Semarang and Solo in Central Java, Gempol and Pasuruan in East Java, and the Bogor orbital route in West Java.
The company's development director, Abdul Hadi, said that the three expressways could cost up to Rp 10 trillion, 30 percent of which would come from the firm's own funds.
"The rest will come from borrowing," he said, adding that, besides bank loans, the firm also planned to issue a Rp 1 trillion bond this year.
The company booked Rp 2.3 trillion in total revenues last year, a 20 percent increase from Rp 1.9 trillion in 2005. Its operating profit rose by 30 percent to Rp 825 billion in 2006, from Rp 633 billion previously. "We expect 20 percent growth in operating profit this year," said the firm's finance director, Reynaldi Hermansyah
No comments:
Post a Comment