JAKARTA. A member of the House of Representatives Commission XI, which oversees finance and banking, Ahmadi Noor Supit, said the rupiah exchange rate should not depreciate to any more than Rp 15,000 per US dollar. He hoped that the domestic currency could be more stable in 2016.

“We are aiming for the rupiah exchange rate to stand at Rp 13,200 per dollar next year. But with persistent depreciation like what we are currently witnessing, it will be difficult for us to achieve that. At worst, the rupiah should not exceed Rp 15,000 per dollar, otherwise, we may never be able to achieve the target [of Rp 13,200],” he said as quoted by Antara in Jakarta on Friday.

Ahmadi said the government together with Bank Indonesia (BI) must be able to assure all of the Indonesian people that the country’s economic conditions would be better in the future so that further impacts from the rupiah depreciation could be minimized.

“If the US dollar is uncontrollable, there will likely be massive layoffs in our country. With the soaring dollar, Indonesian companies’ loans will increase uncontrollable, making them unable to settle their debts. State-owned enterprises’ debts are already uncontrollable because they have long relied on foreign loans,” said Ahmadi.

He further said that government spending would play a role in pushing Indonesia’s economic growth, however, it would not be enough to save the country’s economy without strong market confidence.

“The government must strive to insure the market and to boost its exports so that the rupiah will strengthen and Indonesian businesspeople do not need to hurry to declare bankruptcy,” said Ahmadi.

He said currently, a number of entrepreneurs were anticipating the possibility of their businesses going bankrupt if they didn’t see hope for Indonesia’s economy improving in the future.

Ahmadi said that the country’s economy was unlikely to grow by 5 percent this year, as had been predicted, because in the first half the economy grew by only 4.7 percent.

“If it can achieve growth in the range of 4.8 to 4.9 percent, that will be good,” he said. (ebf)

Editor: Yudho Winarto