Good News For Jokowi And Xi Jinping Meeting, Indonesia's Foreign Debt To China Continues To Decrease

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Presidential Secretariat)

JAKARTA - Before the meeting of President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday evening, July 26 in Beijing, quite encouraging facts were revealed.

This information came from Bank Indonesia (BI) which noted that the position of Indonesia's external debt (ULN) to China continued to decline in the past three months.

It was stated that the external debt to the panda country in March 2022 was US$22.1 billion.

This figure then shrunk to US$21.9 billion in April 2022 and then again sloped to US$21.7 billion in May 2022.

To note, Indonesia's external debt consists of two main parts, namely, government external debt (including the central bank) and private external debt (including SOEs).

Meanwhile, the government's external debt to China did not change in the three months, amounting to US$1.5 billion.

Meanwhile, for private debt, there was a downward trend, with a position of US$20.6 billion in March, US$20.3 billion in April, and US$20.1 billion in May.

In total, Indonesia's external debt position last May was US$406.3 billion.

This amount is less than April's book of US$410.1 billion.

BI itself claims that Indonesia's foreign debt level remains under control based on the ratio of external debt to gross domestic product (GDP) of 32.3 percent, a decrease compared to the ratio in the previous month of 32.6 percent.

In addition, the structure of Indonesia's external debt remains healthy with a long-term share dominance of 86.7 percent of the total.