By: Arifin *)
“INDONESIAN RUPIAH (IDR) instead of currency who get worst pressure due to the strengthening US dollar,” said Agus DW Martowardojo (Governor of Bank Indonesia) in Jakarta, as quoted by Kompas.com, Friday (13/03/2015).
“From December to March, the IDR depreciated 6 percent,” he said.
Compared with other developing countries, for example Brazil, weakening IDR is still better. Agus said, in 2014, Real weakened against the dollar by 12.5 percent. While in 2015 the Real depreciated 17 percent (year to date/YTD.
Turkey compared with Indonesia, throughout 2014, its currency depreciated until 8 percent, and from December to March 2015, it has been depreciated 12 percent. Meanwhile, in last year, Malaysia currency depreciated 6 percent. Now 6 percent as well, he added.
To Bisnis.com on Friday, Chief Economist of PT Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) Kiryanto Ryan said, weakening the exchange rate is only temporary. Currently the IDR exchange rate is in accordance with Indonesia’s economic fundamentals.
According to him, the IDR will STRENGTHENED if government more aggressive to spend of the state budget (APBN) for the infrastructure sector, and if the government by means of the Ministry Finance provide fiscal stimulus through regulation.
On another occasion, Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, Sofyan Djalil, also said, IDR condition is not too bad when compared with another foreign currencies, only Switzerland Franch who more strengthened from the US dollar, reported Inilah.com Wednesday (11/03/2015).
In fact, Vice President Jusuf Kalla said Indonesia’s economic and governmental activity can still run altough condition of the IDR currency value exceeded IDR13,000.
Meanwhile, Deputy Commissioner of Banking Supervision Financial Services Authority (OJK) Irwan Lubis revealed the results of stress tests conducted OJK indicates that banking conditions in Indonesia remained stable even though the dollar at level of IDR14,000.
*) The Author Is Jakarta Regional Contributors
