Indonesia Govt Still Needs Standby Loans

Jakarta, Indonesia (News Today) - The government still needs standby loans, including US$1.15 billion from Japan, a Finance Ministry official said.

"We will likely use (standby loans) if we don’t have a market access because of low demand and high yield," Rahmat Waluyanto, the ministry’s director general of debt management, said on the sidelines of a national working meeting on accounting and financial reporting here on Tuesday.

The Japan Bank for International Corporation (JBIC) has earlier provided Indonesia with US$1.5 billion in standby loans. The government used around US$350 million of the standby loans as guaranty to issue Samurai bonds for the first time in 2009.

In addition, Indonesia also had obtained standby loans from the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Australia, bringing the total amount of standby loans it had received so far to around US$5 billion. The government will use standby loans from the World Bank, ADB and Australia to finance public expenditure support facilities.

"The standby loans from Japan will be used to finance market access support facilities," he said.

He said the government had yet to use the standby loans, except those from the JBIC because it still felt secure with the current financing capacity.

"The contingency loans from Japan are more flexible. If we are to issue Samurai bonds we can use the facility, while those of the World Bank, ADB and Australia will end later this year," he said.

Source : kompas

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