As Indonesia prepared to host an Association of southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit in May 2023, president Joko Widodo pledged to make his economy a centre of growth in the region.
If he is to succeed, it will be in part due to the activities of Bank BTN, a project-finance powerhouse in the region’s biggest economy. Driving economic growth between the 10 members of Asean will require a lot of investment in infrastructure across the region. Better ports, roads, bridges, railways and telecommunications are vital to connecting Asean to China, India, Japan and the West.
Bank BTN, led by Nixon LP Napitupulu, is one of several project-finance banks that will be instrumental in funding this process.
In Indonesia, as elsewhere, project finance typically comes from banks, multilateral and bilateral institutions or export-credit entities. But as demand increases for Islamic finance in the nation with the largest Muslim population, there is a big opportunity for Bank BTN.
This will be good news after a difficult few years.