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ith its large middle class and growing number of small and medium-sized businesses, Indonesia remains one of the most promising insurance markets in the world despite the country'€™s economic slowdown in the last two years, a senior executive of private insurer Zurich Insurance has said.

Stuart Spencer, the Asia Pacific chief executive officer of the Switzerland-based insurance company, said in Jakarta on Wednesday that the demand for insurance products in Indonesia would continue to increase especially among the country'€™s expanding middle class.

He said that although the Indonesian economic growth rate was lower than in previous years, the main engines of the economy, consumer spending and investment, continued to rise.

Spencer said Indonesia'€™s economic growth, which dropped to 4.67 percent in the second quarter as compared with 4.71 percent in the first quarter and 5.02 percent last year, was '€œnot so weak'€, because it still created business opportunities.

'€œWe continue to see opportunities in Indonesia as we see a healthy demand, in spite of lower-than-the-previous gross domestic product [GDP] growth. The economy and demand are still growing and the insurance gap is still huge,'€ Spencer said in a press briefing on Wednesday.

Spencer said the government'€™s massive infrastructure development program and a further increase in investment in the country would help create more jobs and improve people'€™s purchasing power.

When people'€™s incomes grew, Spencer said, they would have more disposable cash for health care and insurance products, he said.

Spencer said in order to maintain healthy growth in Indonesia, the company would further expand its services for individuals and small businesses, while also maintaining its services for large and multinational companies.

'€œConsumer wealth and small businesses continue to grow and expand. Actually, those are among our core strategic focuses for Asia, because we want to understand the macro-economic forces that are powering growth across the continent,'€ Spencer said, while declining to reveal the company'€™s growth target.

Newly appointed as president director for Zurich Insurance Indonesia, Philippe Danielski said the company had a very broad spectrum of insurance products, including in property, automotive, construction, travel, health and marine cargo.

The company has been in Indonesia for 24 years with offices spread in 11 locations in Java and Bali, supported by more than 1,000 general insurance agents as well as partnered with insurance brokers, banks and travel agents.

The company'€™s financial report published on its website shows that it posted Rp 226.1 billion (US$15.6 million) in gross premium revenue in the second quarter, higher than the Rp 130 billion in the first quarter.

'€œProperty insurance, which is part of the consumer segment, now has the higher potential to help growth. We have also launched Zurich Business Guard, a product that helps protect assets in small businesses,'€ Danielski said.

Danielski said the company intended to outpace economic growth as insurance penetration in Indonesia remained below 2 percent, citing a recent study that '€œIndonesia has the largest opportunities for insurance around the world as there is a gap of $14 billion worth of uninsured assets in the country.'€

'€œFor instance, as much as 95 percent of all buildings and assets in Aceh were not insured during the tsunami catastrophe in 2004,'€ Danielski said.