CGI no longer needed as RI's creditors now limited in number: minister

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Finance Minister Sri Mulyani said the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI) was no longer needed as the country`s main creditors were only the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Japan so that Indonesia now preferred bilateral to multilateral approaches.

"The amounts we are borrowing are becoming smaller and smaller and there will probably be only three main creditors, namely the World Bank, the ADB and Japan," Minister Sri Mulyani said here Thursday.

Thus, the minister said, debt negotiations with donor countries or institutions could be held in purely business-like ways without political cost and stigma.

"We are under the supervision of the House of Representatives (DPR). All our debts are in the state budget, written and managed professionally," the minister said.

The decision to dissolve the CGI was also beneficial to Indonesia as it freed the government of the obligation to explain many things to many parties. The government now only needed to give explanations to prospective creditors so that the government could manage its time and costs more efficiently.

"So, now , if I want to issue bonds, my director general directly issues them to the market. If we want to borrow from Japan for an MRT project, for instance, we just borrow without having to go through a long, meaningless ceremony," the minister said.

Foreign loans were still needed although the measure was not the main choice to cover financial deficits, she said, adding that the dominant source to cover the deficits was the issuance of state bonds both at home and abroad.

Other sources were payments from the Assets Management Company, the government`s current accounts, privatization and bilateral borrowings, the minister said.