TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – The national foreign exchange reserves at the end of December 2014 reached US$111.9 billion, up by US$ 12.5 billion from December 2013's US$99.4 billion. Bank Indonesia (BI) spokesman Tirta Segara said the increase was sustained by forex earnings from oil and gas exports and the withdrawal of foreign government debt.
According to Tirta, BI's foreign currency deposits and swaps with other banks also increased towards the end of 2014. The forex reserves at last year's position could finance 6.7 months of imports or 6.5 months of imports with foreign debt payments. The figure is also higher than the international standard for the three-month of imports forex adequacy number.
BI senior deputy governor Mirza Adityaswara said the current amount of forex reserves is still safe despite the central bank's intervention over last year's rupiah correction.
BI deputy governor Perry Warjiyo said the central bank is actively repurchasing state securities (SBN) as a way to stabilize the financial market. In mid-December 2014, the total value of government securities BI repurchased was Rp1.7 trillion.
