Minister calls on companies to be alert on debt
Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati called on the private sector on Thursday to stay alert to problems emerging from dollar loans as the rupiah weakened in line with regional currencies.
“As I have said before, with this adjustment we have to be careful and alert. The business world has to watch revenue and look for steps to survive,” she said outside a meeting at the House of Representatives, Media Indonesia reported.
The rupiah was trading at 10,200 to the dollar at the end of business on Friday, dropping below the 10,000-mark for the first time in more than three years.
The Indonesian Stock Exchange's composite index dropped 6.9% on the day to a 28-month low of 1,244.86.
Bank Indonesia took further steps to improve liquidity, saying it would issue a new ruling allowing commercial banks to use government bonds and SBIs worth 2.5% of their total rupiah deposits as secondary reserves.
By no means all banks were suffering from tight liquidity. Bank Central Asia, the country’s biggest private lender, said it would receive an additional Rp1.1 trillion ($115 million) from government bonds maturing in December, but noted that it had an additional Rp21 trillion in government investments. It said it might use the extra cash for loans.
The announcement by HSBC that it would purchase 88.9% of mid-size Bank Ekonomi for $607.5 million underscored long-term confidence in the economy.
In the oil and gas sector, Petrochina said it would invest $2 billion over the next two to three years, while Capital Investment Group from the United Arab Emirates said it wanted to spend $1 billion on assets in Indonesia, Investor Daily reported.
Also in the banking sector, Bahrain's Albaraka Banking Group BSC said it is looking to buy a majority stake in a medium-sized listed Indonesian bank. Industry Minister Fahmi Idris said a number of US companies were also looking at investments in the country, which they considered safe from the global crisis.
Hoping to boost the interest from the Middle East, Tanri Abeng, co-chairman of the World Islamic Economic Forum Foundation, said Indonesia would host an Islamic economic forum in March next year which was hoped to attract $10 billion in investment, Dow Jones reported.
Foundation chairman Tun Musa Hitam told a news conference that representatives of 12 Islamic countries, along with chief executives of General Electric, HSBC, Shell and CEOs of two large Chinese companies, have been invited to the summit by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Alwi Shihab, Indonesia's special envoy to the Middle East, told the conference that "the monetary surplus in Middle Eastern countries is $1.6 trillion, and we hope that some of that can be drawn to Indonesia."
“As I have said before, with this adjustment we have to be careful and alert. The business world has to watch revenue and look for steps to survive,” she said outside a meeting at the House of Representatives, Media Indonesia reported.
The rupiah was trading at 10,200 to the dollar at the end of business on Friday, dropping below the 10,000-mark for the first time in more than three years.
The Indonesian Stock Exchange's composite index dropped 6.9% on the day to a 28-month low of 1,244.86.
Bank Indonesia took further steps to improve liquidity, saying it would issue a new ruling allowing commercial banks to use government bonds and SBIs worth 2.5% of their total rupiah deposits as secondary reserves.
By no means all banks were suffering from tight liquidity. Bank Central Asia, the country’s biggest private lender, said it would receive an additional Rp1.1 trillion ($115 million) from government bonds maturing in December, but noted that it had an additional Rp21 trillion in government investments. It said it might use the extra cash for loans.
The announcement by HSBC that it would purchase 88.9% of mid-size Bank Ekonomi for $607.5 million underscored long-term confidence in the economy.
In the oil and gas sector, Petrochina said it would invest $2 billion over the next two to three years, while Capital Investment Group from the United Arab Emirates said it wanted to spend $1 billion on assets in Indonesia, Investor Daily reported.
Also in the banking sector, Bahrain's Albaraka Banking Group BSC said it is looking to buy a majority stake in a medium-sized listed Indonesian bank. Industry Minister Fahmi Idris said a number of US companies were also looking at investments in the country, which they considered safe from the global crisis.
Hoping to boost the interest from the Middle East, Tanri Abeng, co-chairman of the World Islamic Economic Forum Foundation, said Indonesia would host an Islamic economic forum in March next year which was hoped to attract $10 billion in investment, Dow Jones reported.
Foundation chairman Tun Musa Hitam told a news conference that representatives of 12 Islamic countries, along with chief executives of General Electric, HSBC, Shell and CEOs of two large Chinese companies, have been invited to the summit by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Alwi Shihab, Indonesia's special envoy to the Middle East, told the conference that "the monetary surplus in Middle Eastern countries is $1.6 trillion, and we hope that some of that can be drawn to Indonesia."