BNI Xpora Accompanies Banana Banana Banana Chips, Bananania Opens Job Opportunities To Expansion To Foreign Countries

Photo: Doc. BNI

JAKARTA - PT Bank Negara Indonesia (Persero) Tbk or BNI through the Xpora program provides assistance to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to increase their business scale and create jobs. Banana Bananania chips are one of the SMEs that have been successfully met with overseas buyers through the BNI Xpora program.

BNI Corporate Secretary Okki Rushartomo said BNI assistance to SMEs through Xpora was carried out through various training activities, both directly and online in a number of regions in Indonesia.

BNI noted that Xpora program advisory participants in 2024 were 11,646 with 497 business matching from 376 activities in the previous year. MSMEs that participated in events and business matching increased from 180 in 2023 to 302 at the end of last year.

"BNI continues to strive to carry out its role as an Agent of Development and support MSMEs to advance to class, create jobs so that they can expand the network and penetrate the global market," Okki said in a press release, Thursday, February 13.

According to data from the Coordinating Ministry for the Economy, MSMEs contribute more than 60% to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and absorb nearly 97% of the workforce.

The contribution of MSMEs to Indonesia's national exports reaches around 15.7 percent of total exports. The government targets export growth to be around 9 percent in the next five years.

BNI's success in supporting SMEs to achieve the global market is a real contribution from the company to increase exports. One of the SMEs that runs a food processing business is Banana Banana Bananania in Yogyakarta. Bananania currently employs 10 permanent employees and many other daily workers.

The owner of Bananania, Sofyani Mirah, revealed that as a former private employee, she has no background in her business experience. However, since 2019 he started a banana chip business because it can be more durable and has the potential to be exported.

"After a year running the Bananania banana chip business, I later registered a trademark and passed Intellectual Property Rights (HAKI) in 2019," he said.

Currently, Bananania products have been exported to various countries ranging from Egypt, Australia, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea to Canada. BNI Xpora first invited Bananania products to participate in a product exhibition to Hong Kong in 2022.

In October 2024, Bananania received a business matching to sign an agreement with a buyer from Canada thanks to BNI Xpora.

"SMEs are encouraged to export abroad. Because the global market is very open. For example, if it is not facilitated by BNI Xpora, sometimes they don't understand how to buy," he said.

Not only helping to achieve international markets, according to Sofyani, BNI also plays a role so that Bananania products can be found on trains in Java and Sumatra.

"We were assisted by BNI Xpora to enter the KAI Service. Our products can be found on the train passengers of KAI Sumatra and Java," concluded Sofyani.