Indonesia will hold forex club forum
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia will host a congress of the South East Asia Forum of foreign exchange clubs from Sept. 5 to Sept. 7 in Denpasar, Bali.
Chairwoman of the organizing committee, Chatarina Widjaja, who is also a Bank Dagang Nasional Indonesia (BDNI) director said yesterday that about 150 participants were expected to take part in the upcoming congress.
South East Asia Forum covers foreign exchange clubs from Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.
She said foreign exchange clubs from Myanmar, Vietnam and India would be invited to join the congress as observers.
She said the congress, called 'South East Asia towards the year 2000', would feature expert speakers, including Andrew Ferris, Chief Economist of Bank of America (BOA), Stuart Gulliver of HSBC Markets in Hongkong and Mark Mobious, fund manager of Templetion International.
Chatarina said Ferris would talk about the impact of the macro economic condition in Southeast Asian countries, Gulliver would discuss Hongkong as a financial center after the year 1997 and Mobious would share his investment experience in Southeast Asian countries.
Indonesia will also host the 41st World Congress of foreign exchange clubs in Jakarta in 1999.
World Congress chairman, Loeki S Putra said that about 1,600 participants from 62 countries were expected to join the congress.
Loeki, who is also a director of Bank Tiara Indonesia, said the coming conference was expected to make Jakarta recognized as one of the global financial centers.
Chairman of the Indonesian Foreign Exchange Club (Forexindo), Jeffrey Turangan, said foreign exchange transactions in Jakarta had increased steadily since 1990.
He said the total daily transaction value of foreign exchange, which was about US$1 billion in early 1990, was now an average $15 billion.
"That shows how strong the country is," he said.
He said that although the value was still lower than Singapore's daily average of $100 billion, foreign investors had recognized Indonesia, and Malaysia and the Philippines as attractive investment places.
He said Indonesia had maintained a sound macro economic condition with its lower inflation rate. In fiscal 1996/1997 (ended in March), Indonesia's inflation rate was 5.17 percent. (09)