Bali raises NPL provision

JAKARTA (JP): Publicly listed PT Bank Bali announced yesterday it had increased its non-performing loan (NPL) provisions to Rp 400.4 billion (US$28.6 million) as of June 30, from Rp 213.21 billion at the end of last year.

Despite the huge NPL provisioning, Bank Bali booked a net profit of Rp 60.1 billion for the first semester, compared to Rp 69.96 billion booked for the whole year of 1997 and Rp 72.27 billion in 1996.

The bank said its total credits expanded by 58 percent in nominal value during the six-month period to Rp 10.67 trillion at the end of June, mostly because of the sharp fall in the rupiah value against the U.S. dollar.

However, in real terms, the credit growth was negative. Credits denominated in rupiah dropped 23.2 percent to Rp 3.15 trillion from Rp 4.1 trillion at the end of 1997. Credits in the U.S. dollar also declined by 11.4 percent to $504.77 million from $569.99 million.

Bank Bali's foreign debts decreased to $153.78 million at the end of June from $347.22 million at the end of Dec. 1997.

"Bank Bali has so far never defaulted on the payment of its debts to foreign creditors. It can be seen from our decreasing outstanding foreign debts," bank president Rudy Ramli said. (rid)