Following the recent trend among the so-called “crazy rich” Indonesians, conglomerate owner and philanthropist Tahir has exchanged his United States dollars into rupiah in an effort to help strengthen Indonesia's currency.

"I've handed over proof to Bank Indonesia [BI] governor [Perry Warjiyo] that I exchanged US$93 million plus an additional S$55 million into rupiah last week," he said at the BI office in Jakarta on Monday, adding that the amount was equal to Rp 2 trillion.

He said that the money was sourced from his own personal funds and that exchanging it was his way to help the rupiah regain its strength against the US dollar.

On Monday, the rupiah exchanged at Rp 15,220 per US dollar on the spot market, down 0.15 percent. Meanwhile, the Jakarta Interspot Dollar Rate (JISDOR) recorded that the currency was traded at Rp 15,246, compared to Rp 15,194 last Friday.

Tahir called on other businesspeople and entrepreneurs who owned greenbacks and other foreign currencies to exchange their wealth into rupiah and encouraged them to use Indonesia's currency for their transactions to help strengthen the rupiah’s exchange rate.

Tahir is not the first Indonesian entrepreneur to exchange a large amount of dollar notes into rupiah. Last month, Surabayan entrepreneurs and businessmen joined under the East Java Entrepreneur Association pooled their money and exchanged $50 million to help the rupiah regain its strength, kompas.com reported.

Not long after, Kontan.co.id reported that coal miner Adaro Energy also followed suit with a similar action by signing an agreement earlier this month with its business partners to make transactions using the rupiah instead of the dollar to help boost the currency, in line with the government’s effort to persuade major exporters to convert their export revenue to the rupiah and repatriate their revenue kept overseas back into the country.

Center of Reform on Economics (CORE) Indonesia executive director Mohammad Faisal told The Jakarta Post that the businesspeople’s move to exchange such large amounts of greenbacks to the rupiah might not necessarily boost the rupiah, but it could help to keep the currency’s exchange rate from weakening even further.

Bank Permata economist Josua Pardede, however, said that not all major export-oriented companies would want to convert their dollars into rupiah.

“Some of them still have to pay their liabilities using the dollar and converting it might impact the company, so they choose to not follow other companies’ steps in converting their revenue to the rupiah,” he said.

He also said that for the time being, the rupiah might continue to depreciate as the US Federal Reserve might hike its rate by another 0.25 percent in December and 1 percent next year. However, he said the rupiah’s exchange rate in 2019 might stay around Rp 15,000 per dollar, given that the US economy would grow slower compared to this year.

Besides that, he added, the government had also issued regulations and carried out various measures to boost the country’s exchange rate so that the depreciation might not be as big as it had been this year.

As of Monday, the rupiah has weakened by 12.64 percent year-to-date against the US dollar on the spot market.

The government announced last month a new finance regulation that would impose a higher tax on 1,147 imported consumer goods that were deemed non-essential or had domestic equivalents to push down imports.

Furthermore, the government also announced a presidential regulation that requires all vehicles to use 20 percent blended (B20) biodiesel. The regulation came into effect on Sept. 1 and is expected to save the country $5.9 billion in oil and gas imports annually.

The central bank has also adjusted the seven-day repo rate by 150 basis points thus far this year.

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