Bank Mandiri donates food parcels

JAKARTA: State-owned Bank Mandiri on Thursday distributed Rp 1.7 billion (about US$170,000) worth of food packets to 20,000 households around the bank's headquarters in Jakarta, 10 regional offices, and branches across Indonesia.

"We realize that what we have distributed is far from what the people need, but we hope that with these they will be able to celebrate Idul Fitri better," one of Bank Mandiri's directors Sasmita said in a statement made available to The Jakarta Post on Friday.

The packets -- containing a bottle of syrup, 5 kilograms of rice, a can of condensed milk, biscuits, a kilogram of flour, a liter of cooking oil, a kilogram of sugar, and five packets of instant noodle -- were financed from allocations from the bank's 2004 net earnings for its community development program. --JP