Indonesia's central bank - Bank Indonesia (Photo: AP)Indonesia, the largest economy in Southeast Asia, announced a large economic stimulus package on September 9 to revive the slowing economy.
The package includes a variety of measures such as the removal of unsuitable administrative regulations, tax incentives and the promotion of mechanisms for attracting foreign investments and boosting economic development given the Rupiah is at its weakest in the last 17 years.
It also included policies to stabilise the domestic currency by allowing foreigners to open bank accounts in Indonesia, continue the central bank’s policies on the monetary market to keep the Rupiah stable and limit purchases using USD.
Accordingly, the Indonesian financial authority (OJK) will allow foreigners to open bank accounts within the next week.
Statistics showed Indonesia welcomes between 10 and 20 million tourists each year.
The first package is planned to be implemented in September or October and the second will be announced by the end of September with the third in October.
On the same day, the Indonesia Central Bank also submitted five financial policy packages to protect the domestic currency and maintain the economy’s indicators in order to improve its effectiveness.
The measures included increasing inflation control, financial and economic cooperation between the Indonesian Bank and the central government; increasing the stability of the Rupiah and maintaining confidence in the foreign exchange market by controlling the fluctuation of the domestic currency; increasing the management of supply and demand for foreign currency with the exchange rate adjusted twice a week instead of once; and reducing the cap for foreign currency purchases from 100,000 USD to 25,000 USD per customer per month.
Other measures included accelerating the approvals of foreign debts from banks and increasing the stability of the financial market by providing software to assist infrastructure investment while strengthening the foreign currency reserves.
Indonesia posted slowing growth in the year’s first six months with 4.71 percent in the first quarter and 4.67 percent in the second quarter. Meanwhile, the value of the Rupiah has been declining since March.-VNA
