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tate-owned lenders Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), Bank Mandiri and Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) are reviewing the possibility of securing a total of US$3 billion in credit facilities from the China Development Bank (CDB) in a bid to enlarge their funding capabilities.

'€œBNI, Mandiri and BRI are in discussions to obtain credit facilities worth $1 billion each,'€ said State-owned Enterprises Minister Rini Soemarno.

Rini noted that the credit facilities would be used to finance the lenders'€™ activities, many of which were also related to clients in China.

Mandiri, for example, currently has a number of branch offices overseas, including branches in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK.

Mandiri'€™s liquidity '€” reflected by its loan-to-deposit ratio (LDR) '€” stood at 83.8 percent by the end of the first quarter. The lender expects to maintain this ratio within the range of 85 to 90 percent throughout this year.

Mandiri'€™s total consolidated assets stood at Rp 855.04 trillion ($64.1 billion) in 2014, the largest among lenders in the country.

Aside from Mandiri, BNI, which is also among Indonesia'€™s largest banks by assets, is also currently expanding its presence overseas, including in mainland China.

BNI currently has an overseas presence in London, Tokyo, New York, Singapore and Hong Kong, among others.

Meanwhile, BRI corporate secretary Budi Satria said that his firm was still reviewing a number of issues to make sure that the loan facility from the CDB could be optimally utilized.

'€œWe'€™re still reviewing, for example, the cost of the funds if we obtain the facility,'€ he told The Jakarta Post.

Budi said that his firm was also still assessing through which activities the facility would be channeled.

Rini added that the credit facilities would be in the form of business-to-business partnerships between the state lenders and the CDB and would not involve any government guarantee.

Aside from partnership plans with the country'€™s state lenders, the CDB has also inked a commitment deal with the government to provide up to $20 billion to support 16 infrastructure projects nationwide.

Among infrastructure projects to be partly funded through the loan facility are the development of two 600 megawatt (MW) mine-mouth power plants in South Sumatra nine and South Sumatra 10 by PT Bukit Asam, the development of high-speed train and light rail transit lines by PT Adhi Karya as well as a revitalization project for Terminal 1 at the Soekarno-Hatta International airport by PT Angkasa Pura II (AP II).

The materialization of the facility commitment will be followed up with a number of bilateral agreements between the CDB and the respective state-owned companies under the condition that those Indonesian state companies will partner with Chinese state-enterprises.

The CDB has also stated its commitment to provide loan facilities worth $10 billion for state electricity firm PLN to support the government'€™s 35,000 megawatt power-plant projects in the next five years.

Besides the CDB, another Chinese financing giant, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the government to provide $20 billion in loan facility commitments to a number of state enterprises.