Rupiah Gains More Value Against U.S. Dollar

Jakarta, Feb 14 (Antara) - Rupiah opened stronger against the US dollar in the opening trade on Friday. The currency traded at the level of 11,886 per dollar in inter-bank transaction strengthening from 11,975 earlier. "Optimism is greater with the Chinese economic growth would be followed with improvement in the global economy that investors would return to developing countries ," chief researcher of Monex Investindo Futures, Ariston Tjendra, said. The US dollar tends to weaken against the majority of global currencies following US retail sales and unemployment data being not up to expectation triggering worries over US economy, he said. Domestically narrowing current account deficit made rupiah to emerge as the best performing currency of developing countries that attracts foreign investors to invest in Indonesian shares and bonds, he added. "The risk faced by rupiah is receding with the narrowing current account deficit," he said. Chief researcher of Trust Securities, Reza Priyambada, said expectation that Indonesian macro economic condition would improve would keep rupiah in the positive area. "The decision yesterday of Bank Indonesia to maintain its benchmark interest rate (BI rate) at 7.5 percent was considered positive," he said.