BRI Targets Credit Growth Of Up To 12 Percent

JAKARTA PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia Tbk targets credit growth in the range of 10 to 12 percent in 2023.

BRI Director of Risk Management Agus Sudiarto revealed several factors driving the growth.

First, Indonesia's macroeconomic condition so far is still very conducive to support credit growth.

Data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) shows that Indonesia's economic growth in the first quarter of 2023 is 5.03 percent on an annual basis.

Meanwhile, Bank Indonesia (BI) projects that economic growth in 2023 will remain strong in the range of 4.5 to 5.3 percent, driven by improvements in domestic demand and still positive for export performance.

The second is about the stimulus from the government continuing so that it will encourage businesses in MSMEs to also run in the future. Then the other is purchasing power. This is quite important for the future growth of MSMEs as the focus of BRI's business," he told the media quoted Wednesday, July 26.

Agus added, if purchasing power grows well, it will encourage demand for bank credit.

Third, regarding interest rate policies where BI does not aggressively raise.

"If interest rates are generally conducive to economic growth, this will also encourage demand for credit in the banking industry," he concluded.

On the other hand, continued Agus, BRI also continues to record a decrease in the number of credit restructurings after the pandemic.

"Alhamdulillah, currently it has decreased considerably. June 2023's position is only around Rp. 83.2 trillion or about 7.64 percent of BRI's total credit. So every month we drop between Rp. 3 trillion to Rp. 5 trillion. Hopefully, we can manage the rest of this so that it can continue to decline until BRI's loan at risk ratio can return from 15.1 percent this June to single digits. Maybe we will get it at the end of next year or 2025," he said.

Nevertheless, Agus said that to strengthen conditions that are getting better, his party implemented a conservative strategy by allocating more than adequate reserves as one of the risk mitigations.

BRI does not want to ignore the economic conditions at the global level which are still full of uncertainty.

As is known, geopolitical conditions in Europe because the Ukraine-Russia war is still heating up.

Many high-interest rate era trends have been imposed, including in the United States.

"Not to mention the trend of inflation in various parts of the world is still high," concluded Agus.