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arge domestic banks with overseas networks expect that their earnings from international trade financing will continue to grow this year despite the global economic slowdown.

Executives of the banks predict that the fall in exports caused by the global economic slowdown especially in China, one of Indonesia'€™s main trading partners, would not severely hurt their international trade financing business.

Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) president director Achmad Baiquni said the lender, which was one of the country'€™s major players in trade finance, had reviewed the possible impact of China'€™s lower growth on its overall loans.

'€œWe are still optimistic about our trade finance business growing,'€ Baiquni said in Jakarta recently.

China'€™s economic growth is expected to remain relatively low, with the country'€™s gross domestic product (GDP) seen to increase by only 6.5 percent this year compared to 6.9 percent in 2015.

Due to the global economic slowdown, Indonesia'€™s total exports fell by 14.62 percent last year to US$150.2 billion. Non-oil and gas exports dropped by 9.77 percent to $131.70 billion year on year.

Non-oil and gas exports to China dropped by 19.44 percent to $13.25 billion in 2015 from $16.45 billion in 2014.

Rahmad Hidayat, BNI'€™s head of financial institutions and overseas network, said previously the bank was expecting to double its trade finance business this year in order to increase revenues in the international banking division.

Revenues from international banking, such as fees from trade finance and bank guarantees, contributed almost 5 percent to BNI'€™s total revenues as of last year.

By the end of 2015, loans from BNI'€™s overseas branches also contributed Rp 19.5 trillion (US$1.43 billion), or equal to 6 percent, to the bank'€™s total lending, with a jump of 93.8 percent year-on-year despite the weak global economy.

Rahmad said BNI held a market share of about 10 percent in Indonesia'€™s trade finance business and China would remain the main export destination for the bank'€™s customers.

'€œLower national export growth only affected our trade finance volume, but revenues grew by 28.6 percent from trade finance in third quarter last year,'€ he said.

Another state-owned lender, Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), also maintained a positive outlook for its international banking business, as China'€™s economic growth was expected to be buttressed by monetary and government measures.

BRI finance director Haru Koesmahargyo said the international banking business contributed less than 5 percent to the bank'€™s total revenues but was expected to help boost overall fee-based income.

'€œOur fee-based income still contributes 7 percent to our total income, but we expect that the growth can be higher than interest income,'€ he said.

Haru said BRI'€™s international banking business had seen positive growth in revenues, especially from remittance and money-changing services in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan and South Korea.

Voicing a similar view, CIMB Niaga strategy and finance director Wan Razly Abdullah said the bank expected to maintain its annual growth rate at 20 percent in the trade finance business, despite seeing flat growth in volumes due to falling global commodity prices.

Wan Razly said the bank was expecting to enlarge its market share in trade finance this year, as it would offer competitive rates on foreign exchange loans.

'€œOur remittance operation also continues to grow positively as we have a service called CIMB SpeedSend that helps increase fee-based income from that business,'€ he said.