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RI to keep tight policies in place after G20 talks

Indonesian fiscal and monetary authorities will keep their tight policies in place to maintain domestic economic stability following the conclusion of the G20 finance ministers and central bankers’ meeting in Sydney, Australia

Tassia Sipahutar (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Tue, February 25, 2014

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RI to keep tight policies in place after G20 talks

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ndonesian fiscal and monetary authorities will keep their tight policies in place to maintain domestic economic stability following the conclusion of the G20 finance ministers and central bankers'€™ meeting in Sydney, Australia.

Finance Minister Chatib Basri said that developing countries had acknowledged during the two-day meeting that they must carry out reforms to fend off global economic volatility.

'€œIndonesia has been doing just that. We have adjusted our fuel price and increased our benchmark interest rates. We will stick with our agenda, supported by the planned policy packages,'€ he said in a telephone interview on Monday.

However, he insisted that it was also time for developed countries to better communicate their policies to spur the global growth targeted by the forum members, as mentioned in the G20 communiqué.

In the communiqué, the G20 members '€” which represent 19 major economies plus the European Union '€” say that they aim to lift their '€œcollective gross domestic product (GDP) by more than 2 percent above the trajectory implied by current policies over the coming five years'€.

The growth plan is based on an International Monetary Fund (IMF) paper, which estimates that structural reforms may increase world economic output by 0.5 percent per year within the next five years and lead to US$2.25 trillion in global output.

For 2014, the IMF has set the global growth estimate at 3.75 percent and 4 percent in 2015.

While concrete action is needed across the G20, G20 members say that they will also constantly communicate their actions to each other and continue to cooperate on managing '€œspillovers'€ to other countries, according to the communiqué.

'€œWe did not see this sort of communication and coordination in the past. Even after developing countries, including Indonesia, took several measures to prepare, economic volatility remained high, resulting from unclear news of the US'€™ stimulus package reduction,'€ Chatib said.

According to Chatib, as 40 percent of the global economy is generated by emerging markets, developed countries must take part as well to ensure growth.

Meanwhile, Bank Indonesia (BI) senior deputy governor Mirza Adityaswara said he agreed that monetary policies in developed countries, such as the US, UK and Japan, should accommodate other countries.

'€œIf the US reduces its stimulus with caution, it will help stabilize the financial market in developing countries. It will be difficult for countries, including Indonesia, to carry out '€˜continued economic reform'€™ if advanced countries aggressively taper off their stimulus as doing so will lead to prolonged economic turbulence,'€ he said.

Mirza said that for the time being, the central bank would maintain existing tight monetary policies to make sure that Indonesia'€™s current-account deficit dropped to 2 percent of the GDP in 2015.

Last year, Indonesia suffered from hefty capital outflows after the US Federal Reserve said in May that it would scale down its monthly stimulus of $85 billion. However, the exact reduction amount was not immediately available and it was only in December that the Fed issued the detailed information.

Separately, Gundy Cahyadi, economist from the Singapore-based DBS Bank, acknowledged the strong sense of policy coordination among the G20 policymakers and that the communiqué could potentially anchor in sentiment in financial markets for Indonesia.

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