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oal miner PT Indo Tambangraya Megah is aiming to sell 28.5 million tons of coal this year, a figure almost unchanged from last year'€™s sales of 28.2 million tons, the result of sluggish consumption and an economic slowdown.

Although the mining company did not disclose its net sales target for this year, it hoped to increase it from last year'€™s net sales of US$1.589 billion.

The Jakarta-based company, 65 percent of the shares of which are controlled by Singapore'€™s Banpu Minerals, saw its net sales drop 18.2 percent last year from $1.943 billion in 2014 because of a decline in commodity prices.

As for net profits, the company booked $63 million last year, down 68.6 percent from $201 million in 2014 as its average selling price dropped to $56.4 per ton last year compared to $67.1 per ton the previous year.

'€œThere have been several efficiency programs conducted by the company, including decreasing the stripping ratio from 10 to 8.5 in 2015,'€ Indo Tambangraya investor relations director Yulius Gozali said, referring to the ratio of the volume of waste material that must be removed to retrieve coal.

Coal prices have steadily declined in the past few years, partially because of a push to use more environmentally friendly energy sources and also because of declining demand from a major coal importer, China.

The situation has led to steep declines in the profits of Indonesian coal producers.

Australia'€™s Newcastle coal price, an Asian benchmark, was recently recorded at $52.50 per metric ton, having risen 5 percent since the beginning of the year, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, Indonesia'€™s coal reference price (HBA) has also increased slightly to $51.62 this month from $50.92 in February.

Indo Tambangraya'€™s data shows that last year India overtook China for the largest distribution of sales with 19 percent of total sales, 5.4 million tons, followed by Japan with 5.1 million tons.

However, China still made the top three with 16 percent, 4.4 million tons, which is a drop from 6.8 million tons they imported from Indo Tambangraya in 2014.

The domestic market made up 13 percent of sales, 3.7 million tons.

Indo Tambangraya'€™s marketing director Jusnan Ruslan said Asia was still the company'€™s main market, as many countries in the region were still developing and needed coal to support their development.

'€œAsia still has the largest demand for coal in the world ['€¦] in terms of China and India. Although China'€™s imports decreased, we still believe that our coal is still extremely competitive for China'€™s market, so it is still one of our main targets. India'€™s demands are also desirable as its growth increases every year,'€ he said.

Indo Tambangraya was also targeting countries such as Bangladesh and Myanmar as future clients and sought to increase sales in the Philippines and Malaysia, which bought and imported 2.1 million tons and 0.3 million tons of coal from the company, respectively.

Furthermore, the company has also prepared a capital expenditure of $38.4 million, an increase from last year'€™s realization of $22.9 million.

Up to 64 percent of the capex, $24.6 million, will go to its subsidiary PT Trubaindo Coal Mining, which will fund infrastructure development and the procurement of machinery.