Govt foreign debt totals $71.9b this fiscal year

Govt foreign debt totals $71.9b this fiscal year

JAKARTA (JP): The government's overseas debt in the 1999/2000
fiscal year ending March 2000 is estimated to have reached
US$71.9 billion, according to Chairman of the National
Development Planning Board (Bappenas) Junaedy Hadisumarto.

Junaedy said on Thursday that the foreign debt included a
$10.3 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.

"The government's overseas debts in the 1999/2000 fiscal year
is estimated to reach $71.9 billion or about 45 percent of gross
domestic product," he told the House of Representatives
Commission IX for budget and finance.

Junaedy didn't say whether the amount excluded the $1 billion
loan commitment from the World Bank and the Asian Development
Bank which was canceled this week by the government.

The government is determined to reduce the country's
dependence on foreign loans. However, in the near future such
loans will be crucial to lift the economy out of the ongoing
economic crisis.

Junaedy said that the government's overseas debt totaled $68.4
billion in the previous 1998/1999 fiscal year or 58.6 percent of
gross domestic product.

He explained that the majority of foreign debts in the current
fiscal year were mostly used to finance subsidy programs and
social safety net programs to help the poor to survive the
economic crisis.

The country's major donors grouped under the so-called
Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI) will convene in early
February in Jakarta to decide on new loans for Indonesia.

Junaedy also said that the government's domestic debt in the
current fiscal year was estimated to reach an equivalent of $74.7
billion or 50.9 percent of the overall government debts of $146.6
billion.

He said that the domestic public debt in the previous fiscal
year was only $21.9 billion and that the large increase in the
domestic debt was due to the huge cost of the government's bank
recapitalization program.

The country's bank recapitalization program is estimated to
cost more than Rp 500 trillion ($71 billion).

The government has issued bonds to partly finance the
recapitalization cost.

The interest rate burden of the bonds in the current fiscal
year is estimated at Rp 17 trillion. (rei)