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tate-owned ship building company PT PAL has delivered a US$29.5 million double-skin bulk carrier (DSBC), ordered by Singapore company Azurite Invest Ltd, the ninth of its kind that PAL has built for a foreign buyer.

PAL president director Harsusanto said Friday the ship, with a capacity of up to 50,000 dead weight tons (DWT), took around 12 months to build,.

“We used around 8,500 tons of steel to build this ship,” Harsusanto said. The ship, the Star 50, is around 190 meters long and approximately 30 meters wide, and can be used to transport bulk commodities such as corn, rice and iron ore.

Harsutanto said similar ships PAL had built had been sent to Hong Kong (four), Singapore (one) and Turkey (two).

“PAL is now building two DSBC ordered by a German company. We expect these to be delivered in 2011,” Harsusanto said,

From its headquarters in Surabaya, East Java, PAL builds various ships and provides ship repairs and maintenance services. PAL has been very busy this year, Harsutanto said. Besides constructing cargo ships, it has also been working on warships for the Indonesian Military (TNI) and tankers for Pertamina.

“The increase in orders reflects international confidence in PAL’s capabilities,” State-Owned Enterprises Minister Mustafa Abubakar said after witnessing the delivery of the ship to Singapore.

The minister said he hoped PAL would not disappoint the buyers, so that more foreign companies would place orders and strengthen its business further.

“PAL’s sales turnover is only about Rp 1 trillion a year. That is a small for a shipbuilding company of this kind,” he said, adding that he hoped it would be able to increase its sales turnover to Rp 2.5 trillion within the next two years. Mustafa said the government was ready to support the firm’s expansion.

PAL suffered serious financial problems following the 1998 financial crisis, which had caused the collapse of the Indonesian rupiah. Follow the 1998 crisis, the government, through asset management company PT PPA, injected Rp 437 billion (US$48.9 million) into the company, to help it cope with financial problems.