Bisnis.com, JAKARTA - PT Mandiri Tunas Finance (MTF) does not close its eyes regarding the prospect of growing demand for heavy equipment financing in 2021, due to the impact of plantation and mining commodity prices.

MTF Sales and Distribution Director Harjanto Tjitohardjojo revealed that this trend also made the percentage of credit and heavy equipment leasing sector financing from the MTF portfolio targeted to increase compared to 2020.

"MTF has heavy equipment financing, but we still play around 10 percent of the total portfolio. The main dominance is still 80 percent focused on new vehicle financing, the remaining 10 percent is on multipurpose or cash," he told Bisnis, Wednesday (13/1/2021 ).

The percentage of heavy equipment from the MTF portfolio appears to have increased since 2019, because the company whose shares are owned by PT Bank Mandiri (Persero) Tbk. (BMRI) and PT Tunas Ridean Tbk. (TURI) This limits this sector not to exceed 5 percent of the portfolio.

"Indeed, there have been several proposals for financing related to heavy equipment. We continue to support funding for infrastructure, agriculture and forestry. However, for mining, we choose to focus on nickel and gold, for coal is still selective," he explained.

Harjanto hopes that these new contracts of heavy equipment, which are mid-term with a range of 3 years, will be able to boost new financing and support the MTF financing portfolio in 2021, the period of awakening from the Covid-19 pandemic.

MTF itself has set a new financing target in all of its business lines to reach around IDR 20 trillion, an increase of around 20 percent from the 2020 realization of IDR 16.7 trillion.

Previously, Chairman of the Indonesian Financial Services Association (APPI) Suwandi Wiratno explained that heavy equipment is indeed one of the mainstays of the rise of multi-finance companies in 2021.

There is an opportunity for financing from the sale or leasing of the heavy equipment sector to increase conservatively, given the expansion of the construction, mining, agriculture and forestry sectors.

However, the demand for this sector will be supported by government projects for construction, increased commodity prices for coal, nickel and gold, as well as prices for palm oil, biodiesel, and global CPO prices for agriculture. Meanwhile, the forestry sector is supported by the trend of increasing prices and production of pulp.