INDONESIA NOT TO ASK FOR IMF AID

Jakarta, Nov 13 (ANTARA) - Indonesia will not accept loans offered by the International Monetary Fund to deal with the impact of the current global financial crisis, state minister for national development planning Paskah Suzetta said here on Thursday.
"We will not use the IMF program because the problem of overcoming the crisis is not on our balance of payments but on maintaining budget deficit," he said.
Paskah said what the government would do was maintaining the national budget deficit through the issuance of bonds.
"To make the deficit to remain within a limit allowed by the law the government will issue bonds or seek loans," he said.
He said the country's debt ratio was still below 30 percent and therefore the government would not increase its debts.
"Our debt ratio is low or below 30 percent and so we need not accept the IMF offer," he said.
The IMF earlier offered loans to developing countries including Indonesia five times higher than their earlier three-month loans.
The IMF and the World Bank have also expressed a commitment to giving a standby loan of US$5 million to Indonesia.