RUPIAH FALLS 30 POINTS EARLY TUESDAY

Jakarta, March 17 (ANTARA) - The rupiah fell 30 points against the US dollar in the Jakarta interbank spot market here early Tuesday.
The Indonesian currency traded at Rp11,975/11,995 per US dollar, down 30 points from Rp11,945/11,950 per US dollar.

The position of the local currency which was still below Rp12,000 per US dollar showed that Bank Indonesia (BI) was still guarding the currency to stay under the psychological limit, Edwin Sinaga, president director of PT Financorpindo Nusa, said here on Tuesday.
BI, the country's central bank, wanted the rupiah to remain under the psychological limit to prevent the local currency from slumping further.
Therefore, BI kept on supervising foreign currency trading activities by foreign banks to keep the currency away from the level of Rp12,000 per US dollar, he said.
However, it would be difficult for the rupiah to approach Rp11,900 per the US dollar due to the increasing pressure of the global financial crisis, he said.
The national economic growth, which had been earlier targeted at 4.5-5 percent, was expected to further plunge to 4 percent, he said.
"We hope the government could overcome the problem by looking for bailout funds from overseas such as the World Bank, in order to ease market pressure on the rupiah," he said.