JAKARTA, April 16 (Reuters) – Indonesia’s state telecoms
company PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia will form a joint
venture e-commerce firm with eBay Inc, its CEO said on
Monday.
Telkom will own 60 percent of the joint venture PT
MetraPlasa with eBay holding the rest, with operations starting
next year, said Rinaldi Firmansyah.
No value was given for the deal. The joint venture’s CEO,
Alex Sinaga, said at a press conference that eBay invested
“hundreds of billions of rupiah”, equivalent to at least $11
million.
Indonesia is seeing growing investment from e-commerce firms
to tap spending by a youthful, wired and growing middle class,
with U.S. online coupon company Groupon Inc acquiring a
local firm to expand last year. Google Inc set up an
office in Jakarta earlier this year.
Telkom’s income from its data, internet and IT businesses in
2011 was up 21 percent from the previous year.
