The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A visit this week by International Monetary Fund managing director Rodrigo de Rato to Indonesia is nothing more than a normal courtesy call, Indonesia's top economics minister says.
""There is nothing in particular penciled in of a substantive nature. We're just regular IMF members now, while he happens to paying a visit to the region,"" Coordinating Minister for the Economy Boediono told reporters Friday.
""It so happens that Indonesia will be among the countries he will visit, so we will welcome him.""
However, Boediono said the government would use the opportunity to discuss with the IMF the latest economic conditions in Indonesia after the country repaid its remaining obligations to the IMF last year.
""We will listen to Mr. de Rato's views, and will also tell him about what he have done and achieved so far,"" he said. ""If he has any good recommendations, we will consider them.""
Mr. de Rato will pay visits to Japan, Indonesia and China between Jan. 21 and 26, which visits will include meetings with senior officials from each of the countries.
He is in Japan on Jan. 21 and 22 to give an address and participate in an international symposium organized by the Bank of Japan's Center for Monetary Cooperation in Asia (CeMCoA), which is focusing on the challenges facing Asian economies and financial markets. He is also set to meet with the new Japanese government's economics team.
Mr. de Rato will then visit Indonesia on Jan. 23 and 24 to meet with officials, business leaders, representatives of the private sector and academics.
His three-nation visit will conclude on Jan. 25 and 26 in China, where he will also hold a series of meetings with officials.
Indonesia last year repaid US$7.8 billion of its remaining debt to the IMF, closing the book on years of a politically-sensitive relationship with the Washington-based financial agency.
Between 1997 and 2003, the IMF provided some $25 billion in loans to help Indonesia rescue its banking system, rehabilitate the economy by restructuring private and government debt, and strengthen its foreign exchange reserves.
Criticism arose, however, as the loan program called for the government to implement a number of tough economic reform programs under IMF supervision, including privatizing state firms and reducing subsidies, which many nationalists saw as damaging the nation's interests without significantly improving the economy. Foreign debt costs have always been criticized here as well for draining off funds that could have been used for welfare development.
The government, under public pressure, eventually terminated its program with the IMF at the end of 2003, but still remained under the Fund's ""post-program monitoring"" to assess the government's own reform targets.
Last year's final debt repayment ended this monitoring.
| 
|
|
|
|
|
|
|