Kejari Devisa So That Gacor, Pemerintah Dan BI Kompak Expansias Regulatory Export

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Ministry of Finance)

JAKARTA Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani this week emphasized that the government is speeding up the completion of the revision of Government Regulation (PP) Number 1 of 2019 related to the expansion of the export priority sector to be able to boost export foreign exchange (DHE).

In his statement, the Minister of Finance said that the regulation that will be issued in February will not only focus on the main natural resource sector (SDA), but also manufacturing trade related to natural products.

This concerns the existing natural resources sector as well as manufacturing. We'll see later on this manufacturing which is also related to natural resources, so not all manufacturers," he said.

The state treasurer explained that through this regulation it is hoped that it can encourage business actors to place DHE domestically and not park their funds abroad. According to the Minister of Finance, this is important to strengthen Indonesia's economic and monetary aspects.

Even so, he ensured that the government would reduce excessive intervention considering that foreign exchange income was the right of entrepreneurs.

"We are designing not to conflict with the free foreign exchange regime. On the one hand, Indonesia needs to ensure that exports that grow high must be able to strengthen foreign exchange reserves, and on the other hand, Indonesia remains committed not to discriminate against export activities," he said.

Bank Indonesia incentives

Previously, Bank Indonesia (BI) had already implemented a policy of providing foreign exchange term deposit (TD) incentives to banks that managed to collect dollars from entrepreneurs for their export activities.

Bank Indonesia Senior Deputy Governor Destry Damayanti revealed that his party will provide fees to national banks if they immediately forward their dollar deposits to Bank Indonesia.

In addition, BI also made a policy that this dollar deposit was not considered a third party fund (DPK) so that banks did not have obligations in terms of minimum mandatory demand deposits (GWM).

In addition, the monetary authority is also trying to attract Indonesian exporters to want to place their dollars domestically through setting competitive interest rates in accordance with market mechanisms.

"The incoming foreign exchange (dollars) will strengthen the stability of the rupiah exchange rate," said Destry.

The dollar phenomenon has disappeared

For information, the government and BI's efforts to strengthen the foreign exchange structure cannot be separated from the anomalies that occur today. The central bank said that the increase in export value that occurred over the past year was not accompanied by the significant entry of foreign capital flows.

"Indeed, our exports in 2022 are very high, 291 billion US dollars with our trade balance of around 55 billion. At that time there was a sense, why didn't the funds enter our banks," said Destry.

Concern on foreign exchange is strengthened by data released by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS). The institution led by Margo Yuwono launched that until December 2022, Indonesia's trade balance had experienced a surplus for 32 consecutive months since May 2020.

In fact, at the end of 2020 Indonesia managed to record 54.5 billion US dollars or became the highest in Indonesia's history. This brilliant score cannot be separated from the soaring price of superior export commodities, such as coal and palm oil (crude palm oil/CPO).