Rupiah Expected to Weaken Further Down to 15,070 per US$

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Ibrahim Ascustombi, director of Laba Forexindo Berjangka, estimated the rupiah to depreciate further against the US dollar in today's trade. The exchange rate is estimated to fall as low as Rp15,070 per dollar.

"The rupiah is predicted to fluctuate and close down between Rp15,020 and Rp15,070 per US dollar," he said in a written statement last weekend in Jakarta.

Today's depreciation would be a continuation of last week's downtrend that came following Bank Indonesia's (BI) Board of Governors Meeting's decision to raise the benchmark interest rate as a response to the Fed Fund Rate hike.

At the end of last week, the rupiah weakened by 0.1 percent to trade for Rp15,037.5 per US dollar. Meanwhile, the US dollar index was observed to have gained 0.43 percent.

The rupiah depreciation is in line with the majority of other Asian currencies. The Chinese Yuan was corrected by 0.41 percent, the Indian rupee fell 0.12 percent, and the Malaysian ringgit weakened by 0.23 percent. However, The Japanese yen and South Korean won managed to gain over the greenback by 0.06 percent and 0.22 percent, respectively.

According to Ibrahim's assessments, Indonesia's economic fundamentals were relatively good—able to withstand pandemic pressures. Although the market did not respond well to BI's decision to increase interest rate by 50bps, Ibrahim said that the central bank is confident that the economy can grow between 4.5 and 5.3 percent.

BISNIS.COM

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