PLN proposes Rp 8.3 trillion SLA loan next year

State-owned electricity company PLN proposed subsidiary loan agreement (SLA)-scheme loan worth Rp 8.3 trillion next year, up 22.75 percent from Rp 6.77 trillion this year, Investor Daily reported on Tuesday.

PLN President Nur Pamudji told lawmakers of the House of Representatives Commission XI during a hearing on Monday that the SLA forms part of the overall loans to be required by the company next year to help finance investment activities to bolster electricity production, transmission, and distribution.

PLN plans to invest about Rp 60 trillion in 2013, about 60 percent of which to be financed via loans including SLA, as the company aims to meet next year?s electrification ratio of 77.65 percent.

?We?ll need huge investment every year. That?s why one of the (financing) sources we propose is the SLA facility worth Rp 8.32 trillion in 2013 so that we could meet the electrification ratio target set by the government during the year,? Pamudji said.

He said that for 2013, there are 50 projects expected to be financed via SLA including 19 categorized as ongoing projects, and 31 as on the pipeline projects.(*)