Rupiah banknotes are counted at a money exchange store in Jakarta, Indonesia (Photo: AFP/VNA) Jakarta (VNA) – Bank Indonesia (BI) said on April 3 that it is in talks with the US Federal Reserve (Fed) about potential currency swaps,while also preparing bilateral swaps with the central banks of China and Australia.
BI Governor Perry Warjiyo said on April 2that Indonesia’s foreign exchange (forex) reserves, as the central bank’s “firstline of defense”, were adequate.
At 130.4 billion USD in February,Indonesia’s dollar reserves are enough to cover 7.7 months of imports, wellabove the healthy international standard of three months.
The second line of defense is bilateralswaps with a number of central banks, Perry said. He cited agreements worth 30 billionUSD with China, 22.7 billion USD with Japan, around 10 billion USD with Singapore, and withAustralia and other central banks.
BI is also communicating with the Fed tostrengthen this bilateral swap partnership to tackle liquidity issues.
The central bank’s forex reserves have beenrelatively buoyant despite it having intervened in the financial market,including by buying government bonds on the secondary market to ease sellingpressure and to stabilise the rupiah.
The rupiah, already the worst-performingcurrency in Asia this year, currently trades at around 16,525 rupiah againstthe greenback, Bloomberg data shows.
BI pledged to stabilise the rupiah at 15,000rupiah per USD by year-end, although the government has projected therupiah will hover around 17,500 rupiah to 20,000 rupiah under the worst-casescenario of the COVID-19 pandemic being prolonged./.
VNA
