BNI commits to migrant labor

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Fri, 09/14/2007 2:37 PM

Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Publicly-listed Bank BNI said it is committed to providing credit facilities to migrant workers in an effort to accelerate the labor export market.

Bank president director Sigit Pramono said after signing an agreement with the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry on Thursday the migrant worker exports sector had ""great business potential in the future"".

""BNI will diversify its current role of bridging the government remittance, to providing credit facilities, deposit services and banking-related activities such as promotion and training,"" Sigit said.

So far, BNI has enhanced cooperation with state-owned postal service provider PT Pos Indonesia to help migrant workers overseas send their salaries to their families through the bank.

Data at the ministry showed more than 4 million Indonesian migrant workers are employed in numerous countries.

The workers send home a total of US$11 billion annually through many banks, including BNI.

Sigit said his bank would provide soft-loan credit facilities through labor exporters to prevent prospective workers from selling their productive assets to work overseas and to help migrant workers to run small-scale businesses at home after their employment abroad.

""These credit facilities will encourage job seekers to work overseas and to accumulate their capital to run small-scale enterprises after their employment.""

He said the bank had branches abroad in Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, London and New York.

Prospective migrant workers could easily get credit facilities because they were only required to open their own bank accounts with an initial deposit of Rp 10,000 (US$1.06), Sigit said.

Manpower and Transmigration Minister Erman Suparno warned against unscrupulous labor exporters deceiving banks and migrant workers and said these exporters would have their licenses revoked, before being brought to court.

""All banks serving migrant workers are asked to report on unscrupulous labor exporters.""

Erman said in the past two years, he had taken action against more than 170 labor exporters found abusing their operation permits in order to deceive banks and migrant workers.

The minister also asked BNI to open a branch in a special lounge at the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in order to serve migrant workers.

On August 24, state-owned Bank BRI offered collateral-free loans to would-be migrant workers searching for jobs overseas through recruitment firms.

The first-loan deal was signed with recruitment agency PT Binawan Inti Utama, which would pass the loans on to workers currently being trained by the company.

Under the agreement, the loans would be used to finance the training and accommodation of the would-be workers and processing of the necessary documents before they leave the country.

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