Bank Resona to issue $50m in global bonds

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Bank Resona Perdania, the first Japanese joint venture firm in Indonesia, will issue US$50 million in global bonds and Rp 200 billion in rupiah-denominated medium term notes (MTN), says an executive.

President director Akihiro Miyamoto said at a press conference on the Japanese-Indonesian bank's 50th anniversary in Indonesia Thursday that the issuance of bonds and MTN would be used to finance expansion and increase the credit financing.

"We will open several new branch offices. Most likely we'll start with offices in Semarang and Bali," he said of the expansion plan.

At present, the bank has two branch office -- Bandung and Surabaya, and three sub-branch offices.

Bank Resona Perdania, established soon after Indonesia and Japan established diplomatic relations in 1958, is a joint venture bank servicing Japanese and Japanese-Indonesian companies in Indonesia.

Last year, the bank booked a 13.72 percent increase in unaudited net profit with Rp 120 billion, up from Rp 106 billion in 2006.

It also saw loans increase to Rp 3.9 trillion from Rp 2.7 trillion in 2006, mostly to the manufacturing sector, followed by the multifinance sector.

Miyamoto said that this year the bank planned to serve more customers from the country's small and medium enterprises.

Bank Resona serves a total of 1,219 clients, 794 of which are Japanese companies and Japanese-Indonesian companies, while the remaining 425, are local ones.

Iding Suherdi, a director, said that out of the total 425 local companies, 380 were SMEs.

"We're targeting to increase the number by about 5 to 10 percent this year," he said.

The bank, Miyamoto said, also aimed to increase the number of Indonesian clients to around 50 percent.

"By increasing our customers, we hope it will help us achieve a 4.15 percent increase in profitability, or Rp 125.5 billion in net profit this year." (JP/ndr)