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Rupiah drops to Rp14,710 per US dollar
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A woman waits in line at a money changer in Jakarta on Feb. 28. (Antara/Puspa Perwitasari)
The rupiah weakened to Rp14,710 per United States dollar at 8:53 a.m. on Friday in the spot market as quoted by Bloomberg.
Similarly, the Jakarta Interbank Spot Dollar Rate (JISDOR), the rupiah exchange rate, was also quoted at Rp 14,11 per US dollar on Friday from Rp 14,655 on the previous day.
Analysts said the weakening of the rupiah and other regional currencies were sparked by the worry about the global trade war that pushed investors to secure their assets.
In response to the situation, Bank Indonesia (BI) guarantees that it would always enter the market to help the currency.
“BI enters the market by buying the government’s debt papers to maintain market confidence,” said head of BI monetary management Nanang Hendarsah on Thursday night.
On Friday morning, the central bank spent Rp 3 trillion (US$202.53 million). “We have spent Rp 3 trillion to buy government debt papers and will continue [to intervene the market],” Nanang said on Thursday as reported by kontan.co.id.
Since January up to Thursday, BI had spent Rp 79.23 trillion to buy government debt papers – Rp 22.18 trillion in secondary markets and Rp 57.23 trillion in the primary market.
“From the market, we see there is outflow of foreign fund. Therefore, BI enters the market to buy government debt papers to prevent sell-off,” Nanang said. (bbn)
