National

Total Foreign Exchange Reserves at BI Increase
Thursday, 29 September, 2005 | 07:24 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta:: Total foreign exchange reserves at Bank Indonesia (BI), according to the central bank’s official website, had increased to US$30.42 billion in the third week of September.

This means an increase of US$0.18 billion from last week’s position of US$30.24 billion.

Between April and the second week of September this year, the trend was for foreign exchange reserves at BI to decrease but the reverse was the case in the third week of September.

In April, foreign exchange reserves had decreased to US$36.43 billion.

This continued in March with the reserves decreasing to US$36.67 billion, in June to US$34.8 billion, in July 2005 to US$32.21 billion and in August to US$31.18 billion.

According to Halim Alamsyah, BI’s Director of Strategic Planning and Public Relations, there are three causes of this increase in foreign exchange reserves.

These are: revenues from oil and natural gas exports; realization of overseas loans; and incoming foreign investment.

“Incoming investment comes from short-term capital flows which will be enough to meet market needs. The result can be seen from the recent strengthening of the Rupiah,” Alamsyah told TEMPO on Tuesday (27/09) in Jakarta.

He went on to explain that said that these short-term capital flows included purchases in the capital market as well as state promissory notes.

According to Alamsyah, liquidity has been successfully tightened through BI regulations, which include a ban on margin trading, an increase in obligatory clearing minimum requirements and selective foreign exchange transactions.(Ariyani-Tempo News Room)