Inalum to Become State-Owned Company

Jakarta (Antara Bali) - State-owned Enterprise Minister Dahlan Iskan said that PT Inalum will become the 143th state-owned company after its contract with Japan expires.

"After its contract expires, Inalum will automatically become state company because 100 percent of its shares are owned by the state," Minister Dahlan said here on Tuesday.

He said that with the government controlling its stake, Inalum was not taken over but its status automatically changed (into state company," the minister said. "So, this is not taking over of the company but it become state-owned by itself," he said.

However, Dahlan who is also a former president director of state utility company PLN said that he had no idea on how much the purchase value of Inalum because it was still under negotiations. "I just want to follow the price set by a team set up for that purpose. The team is still calculating it," the minister explained.

He said that on the one hand Inalum would increase the number of state-owned companies while on the other the ministry of enterprises was doing its best to right size the number of state companies from 142 at present to only about 86 in 2014 and 25 in 2025.

In the meantime, Minister of Industry MS Hidayat said that the governments of Indonesia and Japan still had difference over the value of Inalum which reached US$140 million.

"Japan referred the book value of Inalum based on the results of its revaluation in 1998 while the Indonesian government referred to its value before the revaluation," Hidayat said. (*/M038)