September 21, 2025 | 08:58 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Indonesian Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa stated that the government is preparing a strategy to attract dollars owned by Indonesian citizens that are currently kept abroad. The strategy aims to encourage Indonesians to place their funds within the country.
Purbaya stated that the government is refining the strategy and aims to implement it within a month. "This is a market-based policy, not a forced one. There will be incentives so that Indonesians prefer to keep their dollars here rather than abroad," he told reporters on Friday, September 19, 2025, after a meeting with President Prabowo at the Presidential Palace, in a broadcast by the Presidential Secretariat.
Regarding the details of the strategy, the former Chair of the Board of Commissioners of the Deposit Insurance Corporation (LPS) indicated that it will focus on providing incentives. He highlighted that a significant amount of money is sent abroad by Indonesian citizens each month, and these incentives are expected to curb this outflow.
Purbaya emphasized that if the government can retain these dollars, the nation's foreign exchange reserves will increase, and the need for foreign currency financing can be met domestically. "If we can keep the dollars from flowing out, our foreign exchange reserves will be even larger, and our banks will supply more dollars," he noted.
Previously, Bank Indonesia (BI) reported a decrease in the country's foreign exchange reserves. As of August 2025, the reserves stood at US$150.7 billion, a US$1.3 billion drop from the US$152 billion recorded in July 2025. This follows a previous decline in July from the US$152.6 billion at the end of June.
According to Ramdan Denny Prakoso, BI's Executive Director of the Communication Department, the decrease in reserves was due to government foreign debt payments and a policy of stabilizing the rupiah's exchange rate amid ongoing global financial market uncertainty.
Denny stated that the foreign exchange reserve position in August is sufficient to finance 6.3 months of imports or 6.1 months of imports and government foreign debt payments. "And it is above the international adequacy standard of about 3 months of imports," he said in an official statement on Monday, September 8, 2025.
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