TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsCeasefire provides temporary relief for bleeding rupiah
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
This handout photo provided by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) official website Sepah News on Sunday reportedly shows the wreckage and remains of a targeted and crashed aircraft in central Iran. (AFP/SEPAH NEWS)
A
de-escalation in the United States-Israeli war on Iran has helped the rupiah bounce back somewhat after approaching its historic low, but economists say the Indonesian currency remains subject to a range of risks.
Readings from Investing.com showed the rupiah trading around Rp 17,100 per US dollar on Tuesday, close to its lowest-ever valuation of Rp 17,300 recorded during the Asian Financial Crisis in 1998.
Bank Indonesia (BI) senior deputy governor Destry Damayanti said in a statement on Tuesday that stability was “the main priority” amid “extremely high global uncertainty” and added that the central bank would maximize the use of all its monetary instruments to secure the exchange rate.
BI revealed on Wednesday that Indonesia’s foreign exchange reserves stood at US$148.2 billion at the end of March, which marks a $3.7 billion drop from the preceding month. The reserves have been continually declining since December, and the March figure was the lowest in more than a year.
The central bank uses the reserves to prevent excessive volatility in the rupiah exchange rate, which has been battered since the turn of the year by geopolitical discord, global trade disruption and concern about domestic economic stability.
Following Tuesday’s drop, the rupiah bounced back on Wednesday toward Rp 17,000 per dollar – long deemed a significant psychological threshold – after the US and Iran announced a temporary ceasefire, which relieved pressure on emerging market currencies.
Permata Bank chief economist Josua Pardede told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday that the rupiah exchange rate might improve during the ceasefire “but [this is] likely to be limited”.
