Indonesia asked several countries for tenders for building 110 ships according to the Dutch newspaper Nieuwsblad voor Sumatra dated 30 June 1953

An item reported that the Indonesian cabinet asked the Japanese Department of Transport to supply more details such as costs for building 110 ships with a total gross tonnage of 68,000 tons including four freighters of 10,000 million yen (100.000.000 Dutch guilders). The Indonesian cabinet asked West-Germany, Belgium, France and Italy similar. An international description was to decide to who the order was given.