By IANS,
Jakarta : About 55 percent of Indonesia’s foreign exchange (forex) reserves are in US dollars, giving the central bank more flexibility to intervene in the market, a media report said quoting a senior Indonesian central bank (BI) official.
Bank Indonesia (BI) governor Darmin Nasution refused to disclose the composition of the nation’s forex reserves, or whether much of it included the embattled euro, but he ensured that the dominant currency in the nation’s forex reserves was US dollar.
“If there is excessive rupiah in the market, we withdraw rupiah, if the market falls short of dollars, we provide dollars. If government bond prices drop, we buy. It’s BI’s job, from hour to hour,” he said Monday.
BI’s forex reserves have slid by more than $10 billion within two months to $113.96 billion as of the end of October, the Jakarta Post reported.
The rupiah sell-offs as corporate demand for dollars surge approaching the year-end and on foreign investors’ fears that the eurozone debt crisis might slow down the global economy, said Xinhua.