Invested in Four Countries of D-8, PT Indorama of Indonesia Expands Globally

Jakarta, Indonesia | December 30, 2007 by D-8 Secretariat

Indonesia’s Indorama Group will take over coating, plastics and chemical maker Eastman Chemical Co’s two European plants for about $330 million, the Jakarta Post daily of Indonesia reports.

The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of next year. The sale includes a polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, plant in Britain, and a facility in the Netherlands, that produces PET and purified terephthalic acid, known as PTA.

PET is used in synthetic fibers and food and drink containers. PTA is used to make polyester coatings and resins. Eastman said the financial results for all its European PET facilities, including the previously announced sale of a Spanish plant, will be recorded as discontinued operations in the fourth quarter.

Gregory O. Nelson, Eastman’s vice president responsible for its polymers business group, said in a release that the sale completes the Kingsport-based company’s plan to sell non-strategic PET assets outside of the U.S.

The Indorama Group is an emerging market specialist with plants in seven countries - Indonesia, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Nigeria, Egypt and representative offices in USA, UK, and Singapore.

Indorama is a global manufacturer of diversified industrial products - polyolefins (PE and PP), polyesters and intermediates (PTA, PET resin, filament yarns and staple fibre) and spun yarns. The group also produces cement, fabrics and medical gloves with 2007 turnover and total assets estimated at US$1.6 billion and US$ 2.2 billion respectively and its products shipped to over 85 countries across the five continents. The company is investing in spun yarn in Turkey, PTA in Nigeria, and fertilizer in Egypt.

PT Indorama Synthetics, one of its subsidiaries, has said it would invest US$ 75 million during 2007-2008 towards expansion and modernication of its yarn manufacturing facility in Indonesia. The capacity expansion project would start from this year and the commercial production is expected by year 2008.

The CEO of PT Indorama, Mr. S.P. Lohia, in one occasion told the D-8 Secretary General, that once D-8 put Preferential Trade Agreement, Visa Agreement, Custom Agreement, and other trade facilitations in place soon, he believed that join investment and/or more investment by private sectors increased within D-8 countries. In fact this is the essence of D-8 economic cooperation that is expected “down-to-earth” as has been reiterated by Secretary General since his assignment to the post in early 2007.

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