Jakarta (Antara Bali) - Bank Indonesia (BI) has issued five policies to support the economic policy package, which was announced by President Joko Widodo at the Merdeka Palace on Wednesday evening.
"The policies are expected to support the government's economic package," the Governor of Bank Indonesia, Agus Martowardojo said the same day.
According to Martowardojo, BI will firstly strengthen inflation control and boost supply in the real sector.
"With regards to the first policy, BI has reinforced coordination among the inflation control teams to accelerate the implementation of the road map. There are more than 430 regional inflation control teams throughout Indonesia and they have been given a road map to control inflation," he said.
He further stated that BI would also intensify financial and economic cooperation between the central and local government.
Secondly, BI will stabilize the exchange rate by maintaining market confidence in the foreign exchange market and Indonesia's state securities (SBN).
"Thirdly, BI will tighten the management of the rupiah's liquidity by changing the auction mechanism of SBN's reverse repo to a fixed rate tender from the variable rate tender, adjust the pricing of the SBN reverse repo, and offer longer tenures of up to three months.
The BI Governor also pointed out that Indonesia's central bank had also changed the auction mechanisms for BI deposit certificate (SDBI) to fixed rate tender from variable rate tender, adjusted the pricing of SDBI and extended the maturity period by up to six months.
"The central bank has also reissued BI certificates, with a tenure period of nine and 12 months at fixed rate," Martowardojo stated.
In addition, the central bank has strengthened the management of supply and demand of foreign exchange by adjusting the frequency of foreign exchange swaps to once a week from twice a week.
"We have changed the auction mechanism for foreign exchange term deposits (TD) to fixed rate tender from variable rate tender, and changed its pricing and extended the maturity period to up to three months," he said.
BI also lowered the maximum limit of the U.S. dollar purchase from US$100,000 per customer per month, to US$25,000 per customer per month.
"BI also accelerated the approval of foreign debt by considering the principles of prudence," he remarked.
Martowardojo said he hoped BI's policies would contribute to the national economy. (WDY)
