Indonesia's leading cement-maker PT Semen Gresik plans to acquire foreign cement factories next year as part of the company's ambition to become a key regional player in the industry, an executive said Thursday.

"We are likely to buy factories in Thailand or Malaysia," Semen Gresik's deputy chairman of the board of commissioners, Darjoto Setyawan, was quoted by the country's leading news website Detikcom as saying.

"If we restrict ourselves to domestic market, we will only become local champion," he said.

Semen Gresik is one of Indonesia's biggest cement producers with production estimated at 16.3 million tons this year.

Source: Xinhua