Rupiah Almost Touches IDR 16,000 Per US Dollar, Apindo Disburses Its Impact

Rupiah illustration and US dollar (Photo: dock. Antara)

JAKARTA - The movement of the Rupiah against the United States (US) dollar still has the potential to continue its weakening. In fact, it almost touched Rp. 16,000 per US dollar.

It is known, based on Bloomberg data, the rupiah weakened 0.38 percent to the level of IDR 15,933 per US dollar on Monday, October 23.

According to the Jakarta Interbank Spot Dollar Rate (JISDOR) benchmark rate of Bank Indonesia, the rupiah exchange rate was at Rp15,943 lower than Rp15,856 on the previous trading day.

Responding to this, Chairman of the Indonesian Employers' Association (Apindo) Shinta Widjaja Kamdani said that this also had an impact on entrepreneurs in Indonesia.

Because, when the rupiah weakens, the government automatically raises the benchmark interest rate, which has an impact on these entrepreneurs.

"Yes, it will definitely have an impact. Therefore, we understand why the government must increase interest rates so that the rupiah weakening (not severe), but clearly has a very impact, especially our raw materials, right, 70 percent are still imported, so it must be affected (impact)," Shinta said after being met at the US-Indonesia Investment Summit 2023 at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Jakarta, Tuesday, October 24.

Shinta also did not deny that the weakening of the rupiah would also have a major impact on consumers.

"The problem is, right, our consumers also have limited purchasing power, we can't just transfer pricing to consumers, not all of them can do that. We also just have an increase in the new year, so it's impossible to continue to increase it," he said.

Therefore, said Shinta, his party wants to invite the government to stay together to maintain this so that the weakening of the rupiah does not continue to occur.

"All of these conditions are not what the government expects as well, this is because of global conditions. So, yes, there must be only control maintenance. We hope that interest rates will not continue to rise and don't let too much on loan interest rates, that's the problem," he concluded.