Skip to main content

Indonesia to impose anti-dumping import duties to strengthen rupiah

From Reuters
March 10, 2015
By Gayatri Suroyo

Indonesia will impose a series of regulations, including temporary anti-dumping import duties, to help narrow the current account deficit and prop up a weakening rupiah in Southeast Asia's largest economy, the finance minister said on Tuesday.

The rupiah slipped as low as 13,090 to the dollar on Tuesday, the lowest since August 1998.

After Malaysia's ringgit, the Indonesian currency is the worst performing emerging Asian currency so far this year, with a 5.2 percent loss against the dollar, Thomson Reuters data showed.

"The condition currently is stable, maintained, but despite that, we in the government always watch the movement of the rupiah and of course we have to make policies to strengthen the currency," Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro told reporters, adding that the regulations will address the problem of Indonesia's current account deficit.

Under the new regulations, the finance ministry will be allowed to impose a temporary tax on imported goods suspected of being sold below fair market value. That allows the ministry to take action against anti-dumping immediately, instead of waiting for the trade ministry to complete its analysis.

For detailed story, click here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Indonesia's Astra Pins Hopes on Inexpensive Cars

From Wall Street Journal Feb 14, 2013 PT Astra International plans to continue dominating Indonesia's booming car and motorcycle markets by spending billions of dollars on expansion and becoming the first auto maker to sell a car priced to reach the country's emerging middle class. Astra controls 54% of the passenger-car market through joint ventures with Japan's Toyota Motor Corp., Daihatsu Motor Co. and Isuzu Motor Ltd., and holds 58% of the motorcycle-and-scooter market through a joint venture with Honda Motor Co.  To expand the pool of Indonesians who can afford a car, Astra plans next quarter to introduce models with sticker prices as low as $8,000 through its joint ventures with Toyota and Daihatsu. Currently, the least-expensive passenger cars in Indonesia sell for at least $12,000. "We will be the first offering affordable vehicles," he said. "This year, [auto-sales growth] should at the very least be flat, provided this ne
63 comments
Read more

Goverment to Build New Port in Subang or Indramayu

From The Jakarta Post April 2, 2015 The government has changed its plan to build a new port in Cilamaya and is seeking a better location in Subang or Indramayu, West Java. Vice President Jusuf Kalla said the government needed to build a new port but it would not be in Cilamaya. The Vice President, who visited Cilamaya with several ministers, including Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Indroyono Susilo and Transportation Minister Ignasius Jonan on Thursday, said the new port would be built east of Cilamaya, either in Subang or Indramayu. Kalla said the main reason to move the new port’s location to another regency was because waters in the area were already crowded by offshore mining activities and oil tankers transporting crude oil to Jakarta and other cities. The government has allocated Rp 34.5 trillion (US$2.6 billion) to construct a new port, as Tanjung Priok Port is deemed too crowded. For detailed story, visit here The government has changed its plan to build a new p
Post a Comment
Read more

Indonesia State Pension to Lift Housing Investment Fivefold

From Bloomberg March 19, 2015 Indonesia’s state pension fund plans to increase its investment in affordable housing by fivefold to fulfill demand from low-income workers. BPJS Ketenagakerjaan will invest 10 percent of its 193 trillion rupiah ($14.7 billion) of assets under management to build homes this year, compared with 2 percent in 2014, President Director Elvyn Masassya said in an interview on Thursday. An estimated 34 percent increase in the pension’s membership this year to 22.3 million people may expand the fund’s assets to 233 trillion rupiah by the end of 2015 and help finance the housing investment, Masassya said. The move is in line with President Joko Widodo’s pledge to address a “dangerous” level of inequality that threatens the stability of the world’s fourth most-populous nation and to boost growth to 7 percent. The country is grappling with an economy expanding at the slowest pace in five years and a currency at near the weakest level since 1998, which prom
Post a Comment
Read more