China Taiping boosts high-quality development in Indonesia market

As early as 1936, China Taiping set up branches in Indonesia to provide insurance services to locals and overseas Chinese. China Taiping has developed a deep understanding of the industry in Indonesia and accumulated rich experience in operating its property insurance business there. In 1996, PT China Taiping Insurance Indonesia, Taiping Indonesia for short, was established and headquartered in Jakarta.

China Taiping has been deeply involved in the Indonesian insurance market for more than 80 years, with a strong focus on professional management and business legacy. It has conducted in-depth research and studies on risk management in Indonesian society, providing a valuable reference for Chinese companies to understand and invest in the local insurance market. Today, Taiping Indonesia has developed into a well-known local insurance organization and enjoys a strong reputation in Indonesia.

Under the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, a growing number of Chinese companies have invested in Indonesia, with projects mainly in coal-fired power generation, expressways, high-speed railways, nickel-iron plants and cement plants. As the branch of China Taiping in Indonesia, Taiping Indonesia has actively fulfilled its role as a Chinese central State-owned financial enterprise, fully utilizing its risk protection and capital financing functions and leveraging its cross-border operational strengths to provide risk-protection services for nearly 90 percent of these projects, with a scale of more than 700 billion yuan (99.43 billion).

The Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, for example, is the first of its kind in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. The railway links the Indonesian capital Jakarta and the country's fourth-largest city Bandung with a total length of about 142 kilometers. It is expected to be fully operational in June 2023. When completed, the project will shorten the travel time from more than three hours to just 40 minutes, at a design speed of up to 350 km per hour.

Other projects include the Shenhua Guohua Indonesia Java 7 coal-fired power plant, which is a thermal power project with the largest single unit installed capacity invested in and built abroad by a Chinese enterprise; and the Morowali Industrial Park in Central Sulawesi, which focuses on smelting ferronickel and other metals. It will be the largest steel plant in Indonesia upon its completion.

In addition to providing risk coverage, Taiping Indonesia also offers on-site insurance training, risk assessment, first-aid training and other services to these projects, helping to guarantee both property and personnel safety.

In 2020, two Taiping medical stations located in South Sumatra province and Banten province of West Java were put into operation.

They are managed by medical professionals proficient in Chinese, English and Indonesian. Equipped with advanced medical equipment, the stations provide 24-hour medical services mainly for employees of two coal-fired power generation projects and the surrounding residents.

This is an important attempt for China Taiping to implement the "insurance plus medical care" services overseas.

"China Taiping emphasizes the concept of pre-risk management and promotes health care while giving full play to its function of insurance guarantee," said Guo Dapeng, a national energy project service team leader of TPI, a property insurance subsidiary of China Taiping. "We plan to set up more medical stations to serve key Belt and Road projects in Cambodia, Bangladesh, Vietnam and other countries," he added.

Since 2021, Taiping Indonesia has actively participated in public welfare undertakings to fulfill its corporate social responsibility. As an example, it has reached cooperation with RICCI Senior High School and funds 10 students annually to help them complete the three-year education. The company also donated health and safety materials to the school during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

These moves helped Chinese enterprises create a good image in Indonesia, and have also made great contributions to promoting economic and cultural exchanges between the two countries, experts said.

In August 2022, Taiping Indonesia received the "Outstanding Insurance 2021" award from Infobank, a leading local media, and the "Best Insurance 2022" award from Majalah Investor, a national magazine in Indonesia.

Xue Baohua, General Manager of Taiping Indonesia, said that in the new era, Taiping Indonesia will uphold the "central expectations," while being "customer-oriented, innovation-oriented and value oriented." It will also make greater contributions to promote Sino-Indonesian economic and trade cooperation and Indonesia's economic and social development, Xue said.

haonan@chinadaily.com.cn