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)