SBI rate slightly down

SBI rate slightly down

JAKARTA: The weighted average interest rate on the benchmark one-month SBI promissory notes fell slightly at auction Wednesday from a week ago, the central bank said.

The rate on one-month SBI notes stood at 14.87 percent, down from 14.93 percent at last week's auction, Bank Indonesia said.

Bank Indonesia said it accepted Rp 16 trillion (US$1.7 billion) in bids at the auction, or 72.79 percent of the total bids received.

The weighted-average rate on three-month SBI notes was unchanged at 14.99 percent, Bank Indonesia added. It accepted Rp 12.5 trillion for the three-month tenor, or 96.46 percent of total bids.

Bank Indonesia has been trying to drive domestic interest rates lower to help reduce the costs shouldered by the government to bail out local banks after the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

Bank Indonesia officials have said the central bank aims to drive the SBI benchmark rate down to between 13.5 percent and 14 percent by the end of the year. -- Dow Jones Japan's forex interventions rise

TOKYO: Japan's monetary authorities spent a record 4.02 trillion yen (US$33 billion) on currency market interventions in the June quarter to halt a rapid rise in the yen, the finance ministry said Wednesday.

The total surpassed the previous quarterly record of 3.21 trillion yen in July-September last year when the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States sent the US currency sliding against other key currencies, it said.

The Bank of Japan, acting on behalf of the ministry, stepped into foreign exchange markets seven times between May 22 and June 28, mostly buying dollars for yen, as the greenback lost strength on fears of a U.S. economic slowdown.

"We have intervened frequently," a senior finance ministry official told reporters.

But the impact of interventions, which helped keep Japan's foreign exchange reserves at record-high levels, has been seemingly limited while fears of further action capped the yen's upside, dealers said. -- AFP

Jobs getting scarce in German

HAMBURG, GERMANY: Latest unemployment figures for the German economy on Wednesday confirmed the worst fears of a Social Democrat-Greens government in Berlin seeking re-election, but also those of millions of average people in the country who are worried about their jobs.

While most of the focus was on Nuremberg, where the Federal Labor Office reported that unemployment in July rose by 92,000 to some 4.046 million for a rate of 9.7 per cent, there was also disturbing news from another federal agency in Wiesbaden.

The national statistics office there said that in May the number of people holding jobs came to 38.7 million - down by 0.6 per cent from May 2001.

In other words, jobs are becoming increasingly scarce. And not only are the short-term prospects for any betterment in Europe's largest economy virtually null, but the outlook is for worse to come. -- DPA

A consortium starts oil exploration

MOSCOW: A trilateral consortium of Russian, Vietnamese and Japanese companies has begun oil exploration work on the continental sea shelf off Vietnam, the Itar-Tass news agency reported Wednesday from Hanoi.

The Russian foreign economic association Zarubezhneft, the Vietnamese state oil and gas company Petro-Vietnam and Japan's Idemitsu corporation are test drilling 150 kilometers south of the Vietnamese port of Vungtau.

The US$15 million exploration project, which is half funded by the Russian side, hopes to tap into an estimated 50 million tons of oil deposits. -- DPA

Taiwan exports grow in July

TAIPEI: Taiwan exports grew by their largest margin in 21 months in July, rising 14.9 percent from a year ago in chiefly due to brisk demand from Asian countries, official data showed Wednesday.

Outward shipment in the month totaled US$11.15 billion, the finance ministry said.

Imports increased 15.8 percent year-on-year in July to $10.63 billion, the largest increase in 20 months, it said.

Taiwan posted a trade surplus of $520 million in the month, down 1.2 percent year-on-year, it said.

In the seven months to July, Taiwan's exports edged up 1.1 percent year-on-year to $73.48 billion while imports eased 3.3 percent to $63.45 billion. -- AFP

Greenspan gets honorary award

WASHINGTON: Queen Elizabeth II is to award Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan with an honorary knightood for helping to steady the global economy, Britain said Tuesday.

But the powerful U.S. central bank chief must refrain from calling himself "Sir Alan" because he is not a British citizen, said a statement released by the Treasury in London.

Instead, he may place the letters KBE -- for Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire -- after his name.

"The award is in recognition of his outstanding contribution to global economic stability and the benefit that the UK has received from the wisdom and skill with which he has led the U.S. Federal Reserve Board," the Treasury said.

Greenspan, 76, will pick up the award when he is next in Britain, it said. -- AFP