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.
Only 15% of foreign exchange earnings converted to rupiah: BI
Change Size
The Bank Indonesia logo adorns the gate of the central bank's headquarters in Jakarta in this undated photograph. (Antara/File)
B
ank Indonesia has announced that only 15 percent of foreign exchange earnings to October 2018 had been converted into rupiah.
“This is only a rough figure based on reported transactions,” Farida Paranginangin, the central bank's executive director of management and reporting compliance, said on Monday as quoted by kontan.co.id.
She believed that the small conversion percentage was caused by exporters' need to fulfill various obligations like repaying foreign debt, paying foreign investors and purchasing raw materials for manufacturing export products.
Farida said the figure could increase once the Integrated Foreign Exchange Information Monitoring System (SiMoDis), launched jointly by BI and the Finance Ministry on Monday, had becoem fully operational. She added that the new system had yet to gather real-time data on foreign exchange earnings.
Bank Indonesia issued Regulation PBI No 13/20/PBI/2011 on foreign exchange earnings, but a recent survey showed that only 56.6 percent of exporters had complied with the regulation.
The government announced in November 2018 a plan to issue a Government Regulation requiring exporters of natural products to convert their foreign exchange earnings into rupiah. The regulation was to take effect on Jan. 1, 2019.
Susiwijono, secretary to the Coordinating Economic Minister, said the draft regulation had been completed and that Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution would soon make an announcement.
Separately, the Finance Ministry is drafting a regulation on the flow of foreign exchange. (bbn)
