JAKARTA (Reuters) -Indonesia’s central bank will remain active in the foreign exchange market to stabilise the rupiah, it said on Friday, while the stock exchange regulator said market fundamentals remained strong despite a sudden fall in prices.
The rupiah dropped nearly 1% on Friday to its weakest level since August 1 before regaining some of the losses. The stock index fell as much as 2% to reach its lowest point since August 12.
Bank Indonesia (BI) will continue to take action to stabilise the rupiah by intervening in offshore and onshore non-deliverable forward markets and the spot market, said Erwin Gunawan Hutapea, the head of the bank’s monetary department.
It will also continue buying government bonds on the secondary market, he told Reuters.
Erwin did not elaborate on what caused the rupiah to lose value on Friday.
In response to the 2% dip in the stock market, the director of Indonesia’s stock exchange regulator, Jeffrey Hendrik, told Reuters that the market’s fundamentals remained strong and technical corrections are normal.
The statements from both authorities came after multiple days of student protests against lawmakers’ pay, starting on Monday.
The students are expected to take to the street again on Friday after a motorcycle rider died in a violent clash with police on the previous day.
(Reporting by Stefanno Sulaiman; Editing by David Stanway)
