Construction firm PT PP, for example, has cut its contract target by about 10 percent to only Rp 45 trillion (US$3.18 billion) from an initial target of Rp 50.3 trillion. “A number of government infrastructure projects have been pushed back, while several private companies are either postponing or canceling their projects this year,” the company’s president director Lukman Hidayat said in Jakarta on Thursday, last week.

As a result of the revision, Lukman projected the company’s revenue would only reach Rp 28 trillion this year, lower than its initial target of Rp 30 trillion. However, he refused to go into detail on the net profit projection as it was still being calculated.

Another state-owned construction firm, PT Waskita Karya, also revised down its new contract target this year to Rp 45 trillion. Operational director II Bambang Rianto said the target was lower than the initial target of Rp 55 trillion it announced earlier this year and cited similar reasons to Lukman.

The revision may signal a bleaker outlook for construction projects but both companies remain confident they can reach their new targets at the end of 2019.

Lukman of PT PP said the company had secured Rp 23 trillion year-to-date (ytd) in new contracts as of September. He said he was sure the publicly listed company could secure a further 50 percent of its new contract target.

Bambang of Waskita Karya also shared the same sentiment. “About 17 percent of the overseas tenders we’ve participated should be announced this year,” he said in Jakarta last week, adding that these new contracts would help the company achieve its new target.

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