Taufik Kiemas leads five ministers to visit China

Taufik Kiemas, the husband of President Megawati Soekarnoputri, left for China on Monday together with five top economic ministers to meet Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji and other top officials there, the Koran Tempo daily reported Wednesday.

Quoting a source, Tempo said that Taufik was leading the Indonesian delegation during the five-day visit in a bid to improve economic cooperation between the two countries.

The paper said that the visit was also meant to lobby the Chinese government to allow the state-owned oil and gas firm Pertamina to win the LNG supply contract to China?s Guangdong province.

Pertamina, which together with energy giant BP Plc, operate the Tangguh LNG project in Papua province, submitted its bid for the LNG supply contract on Tuesday to the Chinese authority.

The contract offers potential sales of 3 million tons of LNG per year beginning in 2005.

Indonesia is competing with other world LNG suppliers such as Australia, Qatar and Malaysia.(*)