Indonesia Forms National Task Force for Local Currency Transactions

On the sidelines of the 43rd ASEAN Summit, Tuesday, President Joko Widodo witnessed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation and Coordination in the framework of Increasing the Use of Local Currency in Indonesian Transactions with Partner Countries (photo: BPMI Setpres)

Jakarta, MINA – On the sidelines of the 43rd ASEAN Summit, President Joko Widodo witnessed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation and Coordination in the framework of Increasing the Use of Local Currency in Indonesian Transactions with Partner Countries.

The signing ceremony was carried out by the National Local Currency Transaction (LCT) Task Force in Jakarta on Tuesday.

The LCT cooperation framework is one of the agreements in the declaration of leaders at the 42nd ASEAN Summit in Labuan Bajo which aims to support economic stability by encouraging the use of local currencies in bilateral transactions between ASEAN countries. The formation of the national task force involved 10 state agencies and ministries.

The signing of the memorandum of understanding was carried out by 10 parties from related ministries and institutions, namely the Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto, the Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Minister of Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi, Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani, Minister of Industry Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita, Minister Trade Zulkifli Hasan, Minister of State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN) Erick Thohir, Governor of Bank Indonesia Perry Warjiyo, Chairman of the Board of Commissioners of the Financial Services Authority (OJK) Mahendra Siregar, and Chairman of the Board of Commissioners of the Deposit Insurance Corporation (LPS) Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa.

It is believed that the formation of the LCT National Task Force will become a coordination platform that will further strengthen policy synergies between ministries/agencies in an effort to increase the use of local money in Indonesia’s bilateral transactions with major partner countries. Furthermore, the implementation of LCT is expected to contribute positively to export-import activities, investment, cross-border payment transactions, including through QR cross-border, including in the future in facilitating securities trading transactions.

According to Bank Indonesia’s statement, currently there has been an implementation of LCT cooperation between Indonesia and a number of countries in the region, namely Malaysia, Thailand, Japan and the People’s Republic of China. Meanwhile, Singapore and South Korea have obtained a joint agreement to build the implementation of LCT cooperation with Indonesia. (T/RE1/P2)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)