Indonesia's Telkom aims world's top 500

Indonesia's telecommunication giant PT Telkom has set a target of inclusion in the world's top 500 companies in 2008, an executive said Friday.

To achieve the target, Telkom must raise market capitalization to at least 23 billion U.S. dollars from the current 18 billion dollars, said Telkom president Arwin Rasyid.

"The barometer to be eligible in the Fortune 500 is market capitalization of 23 billion dollars. Telkom has now reached 18 billion dollars and we need 5 billion more for the Fortune 500 inclusion," he was quoted by the country's leading news website Detikcom as saying.

In its recent report, teh state-run company claimed net profit as of September 2006 soared by 62 percent to 9.2 trillion rupiah ( 1 billion dollars) compared with the same period last year.

Source: Xinhua