JAKARTA: Indonesia registered a slight increase in its foreign reserves, from US$107.5 billion in March to 107.7 billion last month, a 0.19 percent increase on a month-on-month basis.
The increase was due to the successful auction of Bank Indonesia’s foreign exchange bills ( SBBI ) along with other receipts, which exceeded the use of foreign exchange among other forms of government external debt payments, said Bank Indonesia ( BI ) spokesman Arbonas Hutabarat.
“The reserves at the end of April could adequately cover 8.1 months of imports or 7.8 months of imports and servicing government external debt, well above the international standards of a reserve adequacy of three months of imports,” he said on Tuesday.
Central Statistics Agency ( BPS ) data showed the latest import figure for Indonesia in March was $11.79 billion. The cumulative imports in 2015 were $142.74 billion, or $11.9 billion per month, on average.
Meanwhile, Indonesia’s foreign debt stood at $311.5 billion in February.
“BI believes the official reserves are able to support the resilience of the external sector and maintain the sustainability of Indonesian economic growth,” Arbonas said.
