Sumber: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?
pid=20601087&sid=aiAcbzs1WthA&refer=home

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International investors cut their holdings of Indonesian government 
bonds 3.2 percent in March to 80.7 trillion rupiah ($8.8 billion), 
according to finance ministry data. Foreign funds sold a net $154 
million of stocks in the Philippines this year, helping drive the 
Philippine Stock Exchange Index down 19.4 percent. 

Deutsche Asset sold all its rupiah debt earlier this year and didn't 
buy peso bonds because of inflation, Schlotthauer said. Fortis 
Investments, a unit of Belgium's biggest financial group, expects the 
rupiah will weaken 3.5 percent to 9,500 per dollar within three 
months. The firm is ``short'' the rupiah, meaning it is betting the 
currency will depreciate. 

``I'm really bearish on Indonesia,'' said Didier Lambert, a London-
based money manager who helps oversee $4 billion in emerging-market 
debt at Fortis. ``You will see investor outflows that should weaken 
the currency.'' 

Unsustainable Subsidies 

The last time Indonesia's rupiah depreciated due to rising commodity 
costs was in August 2005, when a jump in global oil prices increased 
the cost of a state fuel-subsidy program. The rupiah slumped to a 
four-year low of 10,875. 

``Subsidies can be very disruptive and expensive for a government to 
maintain,'' billionaire investor George Soros said in a 
teleconference from Washington on April 9. Rising food prices may 
cause ``social and political disruptions,'' he said. 

Philippine President Gloria Arroyo said on April 1 she may abandon 
plans to balance the budget. Two days later, Indonesia widened its 
2008 deficit target to 2.1 percent of gross domestic product from an 
earlier 1.7 percent. 

Food accounts for 49 percent of the consumer price index in the 
Philippines, the world's biggest importer of rice, and 38 percent in 
Indonesia, according to Mirza Baig, an economist at Deutsche Bank AG 
in Singapore. In the U.S., it's 14 percent. 



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