BANK INDONESIA SPENDS Rp. 7.1T SINCE FRIDAY TO HELP RUPIAH

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Nov 14, 2018
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Bank Indonesia Governor of North Sumatra said that the central bank spent Rp. 7.1 trillion (US $ 476 million) since last Friday to help the rupiah, which stood at Rp. 14,930 per US dollar at 3:30 pm on Tuesday.

"Last Friday, we spent Rp. 4.1 trillion to buy government debt papers sold by foreigners. Yesterday [Monday], we spent Rp 3 trillion, "said Perry in the House Representatives building as reported by   kontan.co.id .

He stressed the bank would always intervene in both the foreign exchange market and the secondary market to help the rupiah from strong external pressure in recent months.

He added the central bank had an increase in the seven-day reserve rate (7 DRRR) to 5.5 percent to keep the currency at its acceptable rate.

"We hope that [with the intervention], financial assets like government debt papers remain attractive," Perry said, claiming that with the 7DRRR increase, there was still capital inflow in the period between June and August.

Previously, Nanang's head of BI monetary management department Hendarsyah said the rupiah was weakening was not only sparked by global pressure, but also because corporations needed to buy US dollars to finance their imports.

But he stressed the main factor of the rupiah weakening was the revision of US GDP from 4.1 to 4.2 percent, the move of the People's Bank of China to weaken the renminbi value of China's trade war with the US and the drop of Argentina's peso and Turkey's lira.