Subject: [cwj 22] Marubeni responds to political favors allegations
From: Amit Srivastava <amit@corpwatch.org>
Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 11:42:52 -0700
Seq: 22
Wednesday, May 24 1:44 PM SGT Japanese trader furious over Wall Street Journal allegations TOKYO, May 24 (AFP) - Japanese trading house Marubeni Corp. reacted with fury to a newspaper report Wednesday that alleged it received political favours in a crucial Indonesian debt-restructuring deal. The company dismissed the Asian Wall Street Journal's charge that the deal was the result of political pressure on President Abdurrahman Wahid from Japan, Indonesia's biggest aid donor and creditor. "The article is completely inaccurate," Marubeni spokesman Kazunori Fukuda told AFP. "It is not even worth our comment." The newspaper said Wahid was under fire over his approval of a rescue plan for PT Chandra Asri, a debt-ridden petrochemical joint venture between Marubeni, the Indonesian state and two other Japanese firms. The International Monetary Fund and key aides were unhappy over allegedly preferential terms granted to Marubeni, the article said. Marubeni said on May 10 it had agreed to a 100-million-dollar swap of loans for shares in Chandra Asri, taking the total owed it by the petrochemical venture down to around 600 million dollars. The Indonesian government also planned to convert into equity its loans of 469 million dollars to Chandra Asri, Marubeni said. The trader's outstanding loans to the firm would be repaid over nine years at an interest rate 2.5 percentage points over the London interbank offered rate, the Asian Wall Street Journal said. The restructuring left the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency saddled with 80 percent equity in Chandra Asri, it said. The rescue plan had left the agency "with what many view as an unattractive asset and the added burden of paying back the petrochemical company's debts to Marubeni," the article said. "According to people familiar with the negotiations, Mr Wahid's decision to back the deal was influenced by his wish to remain on good terms with Japan, which is by far the largest bilateral lender to Indonesia." But the Marubeni spokesman angrily dismissed the allegation that the deal was the result of back-room political manoeuvring. "The agreement was fair and there was no pressure at all from the Japanese government behind the deal," Fukuda said. "We are not even going to bother responding (formally) to the article or to take action." Marubeni has cut its group net profit forecast to two billion yenmillion dollars) for the year to March 31, partly due to its involvement in the Indonesian venture. Chandra Asri is capitalised at 1.05 billion dollars and operates a plant in West Java that can produce up to 510,000 tonnes of ethylene a year. The Indonesian government will negotiate to sell all of its stake in Chandra Asri to the US-British oil major BP Amoco, Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun business daily said earlier this month. Options under consideration included asking one of the oil majors to become a partner in the venture, Marubeni said in response. FAIR USE NOTICE. This document contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Corporate Watch in Japanese is making this article available in our efforts to advance understanding of ecological sustainability, human rights, economic democracy and social justice issues. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. ================================== Amit Srivastava International Programs Coordinator Transnational Resource and Action Center (TRAC)/ Corporate Watch P.O. Box 29344, San Francisco, CA 94129, USA Tel: 1 415 561 6472 Fax: 1 415 561 6493 Email: amit@corpwatch.org Web: http://www.corpwatch.org ================================== ______________________ The Corporate Watch in Japanese http://www.corpwatch.org/japan (CWJ) mailing list is a moderated email list in English designed to connect activists campaigning against Japanese corporations and investments around the world. * To unsubscribe from the CWJ mailing list, send an email to majordomo@jca.apc.org with text "unsubscribe cwj". To subscribe to the CWJ mailing list, send a message to majordomo@jca.apc.org with the text "subscribe cwj" * The CWJ mailing list is NOT intended for wide distribution. If you would like to post messages from this list somewhere else, we ask that you first contact us at cwj@corpwatch.org ______________________