New mining forum to work on society's welfare
Thursday, April 12 2012 - 07:17 AM WIB
A newly-launched mining forum, Communication Forum for the People in Mining Resources Area has set ambitious targets to work on society?s welfare of all people living in and around mining areas.
"Two of the main projects are to provide supports for the society in and around mining resources area to get more benefit by supporting cooperation units (koperasi), as well as working to establish downstream industrial centrals in mining areas," said Andy Asmara, the new forum chairman and current Chairman of Cooperation Agency for Province/City/Regency Business and Business People of Indonesia and China.
The forum, officially declared on April 11 in Jakarta, also signed cooperation to establish representative offices in Jambi Province, Palembang South Sumatra, East Kalimantan and Papua as well as overseas in Singapore and Guangzhou China.
Andy stated that the forum currently has established cooperation with seven investors in total, planning to cooperate with more regional and overseas partners in the future.
Ahmad Husaini, signing the cooperation on behalf of South Sumatra, is head of Palembang cooperation unit, currently indulging in coal transport business between PT MME, which concession is located in Darmo village Lawang Kidul subdistrict of Muara Enim, to a power plant in Palembang.
"We transported at least 10,000 tons of coal to the power plant per month since October 2011, but was halted following the regent's decision to close the road for coal transport. Now that the road is reopen for coal transport, we plan to resume operation this month," he said to Petromindo.com. Ahmad stated that the power plant needs up to 150,000 tons of coal to operate per month.
"It's still small, but at least the people living in the mining area have started to get benefits from the business," he said, adding that there are other cooperation units in Palembang who indulge in coal transport business from other mining companies to textile industries in Java.
For mineral mining, according to Andy, the participation of Singapore and Chinese investors are expected to help with the smelter issue, as stated within the Government Regulation 7/2012.
"Now that we've got representatives overseas, talks of investments should be a lot easier," he said.
Representative office in Guangzhou is expected to be established in the next three months, while the forum is scheduled to discuss various strategies in the coming month. Acting as advisers are known politician Vence Rumangkang and Blossom Group founder Ricky Sutanto.
Editing by Adianto P. Simamora