Bank Negara Indonesia sees 19 pct loan growth in 2011

* Negara sees 2011 loan growth at 18-19 pct
* Plans to acquire a micro-lending bank within two years
* Expects to recoup 1.7 trln rph in bad debt this year

PT Bank Negara Indonesia , the nation's fourth biggest lender and flush with $1.2 billion from a rights issue earlier month, aims to spend big on infrastructure projects, the firm's CEO said on Tuesday.

Indonesia has been a darling of emerging market investors this year, but poor infrastructure and byzantine bureaucracy still deter investors. "When I meet investors during road shows, they're really concerned about our connectivity between islands that is causing higher costs," said Gatot M Suwondo, BNI's president director, in an interview with Reuters.

"Therefore, we need to develop our infrastructures as we move from a (domestic) consumer-driven economy to the combination of consumer and foreign investment."


Negara expects to set aside about 20 trillion rupiah to finance infrastructure projects -- including roads and power plants -- in order to stimulate foreign investor appetite, Suwondo said, but getting them off the ground remained a problem.

"We have 25 trillion rupiah of undisbursed loans because projects never start," Suwondo said." We need the government to step up to help by executing its own spending to build infrastructure."


LOAN AND ACQUISITION
BNI is now one of the most capitalised banks in Indonesia after a successful $1.2 billion rights issue this month that help increase its adequacy ratio to 19 percent from 12 percent.
"I expect our loan growth to reach between 18 to 19 percent next year," Suwondo said. "It's still below the sector's target but it's because we're under a restructuring process that is expected to be completed mid next year."

The bank also aims to grow via acquisitions and is looking at opportunities to buy a micro-lender. "We're currently looking [to acquire], maybe in one or two years, because we need to calculate carefully," he said. 

The bank also in talks with several potential partners to develop its brokerage unit as well as its life insurance unit, Suwondo added. 

Suwondo said that BNI expects to recoup about 1.7 trillion rupiah of bad debt this year to add to a 2010 profit that it expect to jump 60 percent from 2.48 trillion rupiah in 2009 to about 3.97 trillion rupiah based on a Reuters calculation. 

The forecast is inline with StarMine SmartEstimate, a consensus that gives more weight to recent forecasts by top-rated analysts, at 3.99 trillion rupiah. 

Shares of BNI, which has a market capitalisation of about $6.1 billion, have risen 95 percent this year -- easily beating a broader market that is nevertheless up 40 percent. Source: Reuters