RI'S FOREX RESERVES AMOUNT TO US$54.8 BILLION

Jakarta, May 21 (ANTARA) - The country's foreign exchange reserves up to the end of March amounted to US$54.8 billion, or equivalent to the amount needed to finance imports and to pay external debt installments for 6.1 months, a central bank official said.

Director for Strategic Planning and Human Relations of Bank Indonesia (BK), Dyah NK Makhijani said here on Wednesday that the foreign exchange reserves had increased due to improvement in the current transactions as well as in financial and capital transactions.

According to Makhijani, the performance of Indonesia's balance of paymentS (NPI) in the first quarter of 2009 gave a positive contribution to state foreign exchange reserves.

The NPI during the period improved significantly with a surplus of US$4 billion after suffering a big deficit pressure in the forth quarter of 2008 at 0.7 billion.

The good performance of the quarter I 2009 transactions was supported by a surplus in the non-oil trade balance and decrease in the deficit of the oil and service trade.

The surplus in the non-oil trade balance happened because non oil imports dropped sharper than exports of non oil commodities.

She said decline in the oil trade deficit was fueled by the decline in oil imports due to the drastic drop of fuel oil consumption at home.