Indonesia’s rupiah has room to appreciate against the US dollar and the central bank is focusing its policy on supporting the rupiah with its currency interventions, a deputy central bank governor said on Monday.
Destry Damayanti made the comments at a parliamentary hearing, after the rupiah on Monday hit levels last seen in March. The currency was down 0.4% at 15,190 per US dollar at 0815 GMT.
Indonesia also has a surplus of about US$10 billion (RM45 billion) in its state budget in the January to June period, the chair of parliament’s budget committee said at a hearing with the finance minister on Monday.
The government had spent 1,255.7 trillion rupiah ($82.55 billion) in the first half of the year, while its revenue had reached 1,407.9 trillion rupiah, bringing the surplus to 152.3 trillion rupiah, according to Said Abdullah, who spoke ahead of a budget presentation by Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati.
Said called for the government to reduce its planned debt issuance, including this year’s bond sales, due to the strong budget performance.
Sri Mulyani earlier this month lowered her forecast for the 2023 budget deficit to 2.28% of GDP, compared with an initial projection of 2.84%.
Source: Reuters