Bank Indonesia (BI) reported that Indonesia recorded foreign debt (FD) position at the end of January 2021 at US$420.7 billion.

Head of the BI Communication Department, Erwin Haryono, said the amount consisted of public sector external debt, which includes the government and central bank, amounting to US$213.6 billion, and private sector external debt, including state-owned enterprises amounting to US$207.1 billion.

"Indonesia's external debt at the end of January 2021 grew by 2.6% on an annual basis or year-on-year (YoY), down from the growth in the previous month of 3.4% YoY. The slowdown in external debt growth occurred in government external debt and private external debt," he said in Jakarta on Monday (15/3).

BI noted, the government's external debt position in January 2021 reached US$210.8 billion, or grew 2.8% YoY, lower than the growth in December 2020 of 3.3% YoY.

Erwin said the slowdown in growth was due to the maturing bilateral and multilateral loan repayments. Meanwhile, government debt securities' position continued to increase in line with Government Securities (GB) issuance in US dollars and Euros at the beginning of the year.

"The development of external debt was also driven by the increasing inflow of foreign capital in the domestic Government Securities (GB) market. This is also supported by the maintained confidence of foreign investors in the prospect of the domestic economy, "he explained.

On the other hand, Erwin said, corporate recorded private external debt at the end of January 2021 to have grown by 2.3% YoY, lower than the growth in the previous month of 3.8% YoY.

"The growth of private external debt is slowing down due to the slowing growth in external debt of non-financial institution companies (NFIC), as well as the growth of external debt of financial institutions (FI) experiencing a deeper contraction," said Erwin.

NFIC external debt grew by 4.9% YoY, lower than the previous month's growth of 6.3% YoY. Also, FI's external debt contracted 6.1% YoY, deeper than the previous month's contraction of 4.7% YoY.

Thus, BI noted that the ratio of Indonesia's external debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at the end of January 2021 was maintained at around 39.5%, relatively stable compared to the ratio in January 2021 of 39.4%.

Erwin added that Indonesia's external debt structure in January 2021 will remain healthy and is still supported by the principle of prudence in its management.

"The healthy structure of Indonesia's external debt is also reflected in the large share of long-term external debt, which reached 89.4% of total external debt," said Erwin.