"The weakness in this system is the difficulty of using local currency to pay ships operating in cross-border trade routes," the Celios Director said.
Bhima assessed that foreign ships want to receive US dollars and not be paid with rupiah quotations. This can be cumbersome as 90 percent of ships for imports and exports are vessels from foreign countries.
"Another problem arises when international cooperation, for example in grants, loans remains predominantly in US dollars. So the return of principal installments and interest payments also continues to suck up US dollars," said Bhima.
Bhima pointed out the lack of domination in transactions using local currency settlement with Thailand only amounts to 4 percent of total exports. This is similar to other countries.
"If the portion can increase to 30 percent of total exports, it can be an effective rupiah stabilization policy," said Bhima.
Finally, he assessed that Indonesia must begin to be involved in the BRIC discussion (forum of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) despite Indonesia not being included in the group. The discussion is related to joint currency cooperation. "Every de-dollarization effort must be supported," he said.
