Indonesia to borrow US$4.2b from World bank, ADB to cover budget deficit: govt official

SEP 22, 201511:44 AM

[JAKARTA] Indonesia will borrow US$4.2 billion in multilateral loans from the World Bank and Asian Development Bank to cover a widening budget deficit, a finance ministry official said on Tuesday. "We're choosing foreign sources because the market is still volatile and Indonesian growth is slowing," Scenaider Siahaan, an official with the finance ministry's debt management office, told reporters.

Siahaan said the loans would strengthen forex reserves, which the central bank said fell to US$103 billion this week.

Indonesia will issue around 500 trillion rupiah worth of bonds in 2016, of which up to 30 per cent could be in foreign currency, Siahaan added.

REUTERS