BNI Has The Opportunity To Develop Business On The African Continent, President Director: World Economic Conditions Are Challenging

JAKARTA - President Director of BNI Royke Tumilaar stated that PT Bank Negara Indonesia (Persero) Tbk or BNI has a great opportunity to develop business potential on a global scale, especially in the African continent.

In his statement in Jakarta, quoted from Antara Monday, March 6, he stated that he saw that there were still many areas that needed to be developed through cross-segment synergy and collaboration, division or units in carrying out business executions.

"The world's economic condition will be full of challenges in 2023. However, we hope that everything can be passed with full readiness and caution," he said.

Meanwhile, BNI President Commissioner Agus Martowardojo said that Indonesia remains optimistic that it can overcome the challenges of the world economy in 2023.

According to him, when other countries experienced an economic slowdown, Indonesia was able to accelerate growth supported by good economic fundamentals, restore public demand, and positive performance in commodity exports.

"We must believe that global uncertainty and volatility will improve in 2023," said Agus.

Previously, Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Cecep Herawan said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had a mission to target potential markets and strengthen networks in the African continent.

According to him, BNI together with other State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN) can work together to work on strategic projects on the African continent through government cooperation with business entities or Public Private Partnerships (PPP), where SOEs come together either through financing, construction, and other services.

As an illustration, in 2022 BNI will be able to encourage an increase in trading rate of 76.7 percent and the only Association of State-Owned Banks (Himbara), which has an international network area of eight branch offices abroad.

"I think this is an extraordinary asset that we can do together, we have the role of BNI and BUMN friends together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, how can we expand together to countries that have a potential market. We can actively participate together in international forums," said Cecep.

He said the relationship between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and BNI was established for a long time so that it could unite the vision to seek infrastructure development in ASEAN and Indo-Pacific.

This is also related to the development of green infrastructure or green infrastructure, digital transformation, and innovative financing in line with the BNI program.

His party noted that there were 266 multilateral projects worth US$238 billion and 140 bilateral projects worth US$71.4 billion specifically with Indonesia.

In addition, BNI is proactive in developing programs abroad, namely Diaspora Loan which was launched with the Indonesian Embassy (KBRI) in Tokyo and the development of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), said Cecep Herawan.