Garuda Indonesia secures $68mn export-boosting state loan

Garuda Indonesia (GA, Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta) has managed to secure an IDR1 trillion rupiah (USD67.9 million) loan facility from the Indonesian Export Financing Agency (Lembaga Pembiayaan Ekspor Indonesia – LPEI), also known as Indonesian Eximbank, to support its “export activities”, the airline announced in a stock exchange disclosure dated October 8. Fuad Rizal, the flag carrier’s director of finance and risk management, said in the filing that the company had received the export working capital loan – which has a one-year tenor – after the country’s finance minister, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, signed a special export assignment decree for Garuda as part of the government’s efforts to support the aviation industry. “This loan can support the company’s service export activities in order to increase national economic growth,” Rizal said in the filing. Local media pointed out that Garuda Indonesia had recently expanded its international cargo operations by launching a 1x weekly cargo-only route between Makassar and Singapore Changi on October 5 to boost commodity exports from eastern Indonesia. This will be operated using an unconverted A330-300 with a payload of up to 40 tons. Garuda Indonesia currently operates seventeen aircraft of this type, the ch-aviation fleets advanced module shows. As previously reported, Garuda Indonesia has debuted scheduled international cargo-only flights from two regional gateways in Indonesia, Makassar and Manado, in an effort to aid the country’s economy and its own revenues.