JAKARTA, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia Central Bank (BI) Governor Agus Martowardojo said on Thursday that BI has been ready to respond to the continuing depreciation of the national currency rupiah against the U.S. dollar.
"We would continue developing our second line of defense mechanism. We already established bilateral swap agreement and bilateral currency swap agreement with friendly countries," Agus said in his office here, citing ASEAN countries, South Korea and Australia as the countries bonded with such agreements with Indonesia.
Agus said that the depreciation was also felt by currencies of other nations as it was incited by the United States Federal Reserves' increasing rate benchmark, coupled by the increase of U.S. sovereign bond rate.
With all of those developing situation, he said that global economy now is leading to a new economic equilibrium. "We would prepare ourselves to brace for this new challenge," he added.
The rupiah traded at 14,000 rupiah against 1 U.S. dollar on Thursday.