"Certainly it needs studying. It is not a small money," Kalla said.Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Vice President Jusuf Kalla said the government is still studying share offer valued at US$1.7 billion from PT Freeport Indonesia.
The U.S. company, which has large copper and gold mines in Papua, offers the shares under its divestment obligation regulated in its contract. Under the regulation, Freeport is to divest 30 percent of its shares to Indonesian investors.
"Certainly it needs studying. It is not a small money," Kalla said here on Friday.
He said the government is studying the real value of the Freeport share, adding there are quite many companies eager to buy the shares.
According to a regulation, the evaluation of the share value is to be wrapped up in 60 days.
Earlier, the Indonesian unit of U.S. mining giant Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold set the price of the shares the government wanted to buy at US$1.7 billion.
The government has issued a regulation on minerals and coal requiring foreign mineral and coal contractors to divest part of their shares after they operated at a certain time.
Divestment is set 51 percent stake for mining companies operating only mining activities, 40 percent for ones operating mining and smelter and 30 percent from ones operating underground mining like Freeport Indonesia.
Divestment is made by phases that Freeport Indonesia is divest 20 percent in 2016 and 10 percent in 2019 .
This year, the divestment by Freeport would be only 10.64 percent as the government already has a 9.36 percent stake in the company.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
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