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Indonesia remains attractive to foreign investors

Indonesia remains an attractive investment destination despite its economic difficulties as part of the global trend.

Indonesia remains anattractive investment destination despite its economic difficulties aspart of the global trend.

The financial and publicdebt crisis in the US and the EU, Indonesia ’s two key tradepartners, has made great impact on this Southeast Asian country. Thelocal rupiah has depreciated 17 percent since the beginning of the year,while inflation stood at a high 8.5 percent and unemployment at 6.2percent in the third quarter.

At the same time, thecountry recorded a current account deficit of 6.26 billion USD in Q3and the growth rate dropped to 5.62 percent, the lowest for many years.

However, chairman of Indonesia’s InvestmentCoordinating Board (BKPM) Mahendra Siregar said total investment jumped23 percent year-on-year to top 100.5 trillion rupiah (8.9 billion USD)from July to September, a record figure for a quarter. He stressed thatthis is an important signal showing that Indonesia , amid the bleakglobal economic outlook, remains a major destination for investment.

Soaring investment in the third quarter has brought the total figurein the nine-month period to 293 trillion Rupiah, making the annualinvestment target of 390 trillion Rupiah more achievable.

BKPM hopes to secure 450 trillion Rupiah in investment in 2014, a 15 percent increase compared to this year.-VNA

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