Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Singapore company wins Indonesia water deal

Source: The Jakarta Post 7/7/2004

SINGAPORE (DPA): A Singapore company has signed a US$75 million deal to treat and supply water to the more than 1 million residents of the Indonesian tourism hotspot Yogyakarta.

Boustead Singapore, an engineering services and technology group, confirmed on Tuesday it has signed an agreement with the Yogyakarta governor to treat and supply water to the city and its sub-districts.

Boustead intends to own 49 percent of the equity in the project to bring residents clean, treated water for the first time.

Only 20 per cent of the population living in the Yogyakarta area currently have that access.

The cultural and intellectual center of Indonesia, Yogyakarta is the country's most popular tourist destination after Bali.

Work is expected to begin late this year and be completed in 2006.

On June 25, Indonesian President Megawati Soekarnoputri warned that the country will be short of water in the next decade if there is no sustainable effort to conserve the environment.

"If the Indonesian people do not have full awareness on the need to conserve clean water resources, they will face a fresh water crisis in 2005," she said after inaugurating the Leuwigoong irrigation project development in Garut regency, West Java province