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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.

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