External debt growth in February 2014 was particularly caused by a rise in public sector debt, while the growth of private sector debt decelerated. External public sector debt grew by 3.2 percent (yoy), higher than the 1.9 percentage growth (yoy) in the previous month. Meanwhile, external debt of private sector grew by 11.6 percent (yoy), slower than the pace recorded in the previous month (12.5 percent, yoy). As compared to January 2014, outstanding external debt growth of both public and private sector were equal at 0.9 percent.

Slower growth of external private sector debt in February 2014 was mainly caused by the slowing growth pace of external debt in the mining & quarrying sector and the manufacturing sector. In the mining & quarrying sector external debt grew by 15.9 percent (yoy) in February 2014, down from 20.5 percent (yoy) in the previous month. Meanwhile, external debt in the manufacturing sector grew by 7.7 percent (yoy) in February 2014, slower than the 12.4 percent growth pace (yoy) in January. The external debt in the electricity, gas & water supply sector continued to contract. In February 2014, it contracted by 1.0 percent (yoy). The financial sector and the transport & communications sector's external debt growth accelerated from 11.4 percent (yoy) and 5.5 percent (yoy) in January 2014 to 13.7 percent (yoy) and 6.4 percent (yoy) respectively.

Increased growth mainly occurred in long-term external debt. Long-term external debt in February 2014 grew by 9.2 percent (yoy), higher than the growth of 7.6 percent (yoy) recorded in January 2014. Meanwhile, short-term external debt contracted by 0.5 percent (yoy) as compared to 5.5 percent (yoy) in previous month. In February 2014, long-term external debt amounted to USD $227.0 billion or 83.4 percent of total external debt. Of this amount, long-term external public sector debt amounted to USD $124.2 billion (96.2 percent of total external public sector debt), while long-term external debt of the private sector amounted to USD $102.9 billion (71.9 percent of total external private sector debt).

Bank Indonesia believes that the developments in Indonesia’s external debt up to February 2014 can still be considered healthy in supporting external resilience. However, Bank Indonesia did state that it will carefully monitor external private sector debt.

Bahas