Public and Private Foreign Debt of Indonesia Still at Safe Levels
Foreign debt of Indonesia totaled USD $264 billion per December 2013. Based on data from Statistics Indonesia, 46.8 percent of this total debt was accounted for by the public sector, while the remaining 53.2 percent was private sector debt. On a year-on-year (yoy) basis, growth of Indonesia’s total debt slowed to 4.06 percent in the last month of 2013. One year earlier this growth was significantly higher at 12.0 percent. Indonesia’s level of foreign debt is still safe at 30.2 percent of GDP in the fourth quarter of 2013.
Slowing foreign debt growth in December 2013 was caused by a 2.0 percent correction in public debt as well as declining growth of private sector debt at 11.3 percent (yoy) in December. Most of foreign public sector debt - USD $116.8 billion - constituted long-term debt in the form of bilateral loans, multilateral loans, export credit facilities and government bonds. The remaining short-term debt is in the form of Treasury Bills (SPNs) and Bank Indonesia certificates (SBIs).
Foreign private sector debt - USD $99.8 billion - is also dominated by long-term debt, mostly through loan agreements (USD $91.3 billion). About 77 percent of foreign private debt is held by non-financial corporations.
Although still assessed as safe, Indonesia’s total foreign debt-to-GDP ratio increased from 28.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 to 30.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013. Compared to most advanced and peer emerging economies, however, this is still a healthy ratio.
According to Latif Adam, economist at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Indonesia’s foreign debt-to- GDP ratio in 2013 was still below 30 percent and thus safe. Adam said that there are two indicators that measure the safety of the country's foreign debt level. Firstly, foreign debt is generally regarded as being at a safe level when it is below 30 percent of GDP. Secondly, a safe level of the country's foreign exchange reserves. Indonesia's forex reserves (USD $100.7 billion in January 2014) are sufficient to finance 5.7 months of imports or 5.6 months of imports and servicing of government external debt, which is well above the international standard of reserve adequacy at three months of imports. In recent months, Indonesia's foreign exchange reserves have shown a growing trend.
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