The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is ready to inject US$2.4 billion to Indonesia in the end of this month to help strengthen the country's forex reserves capacity, the business daily Bisnis Indonesia quoted an official as saying.

The liquidity that will be disbursed in the Special Drawing Rights (SDR), the IMF's currency, is a part of fund injection plan to member countries with a total of US$250 billion to tackle liquidity difficulties in the current crisis.

Thomas R. Rumbaugh, the IMF's division chief for Asia Pacific, said that the injection could increase Indonesia's forex reserves deposited in the Bank Indonesia, the central bank, with global currency denomination that could be cross-converted.

He believed that the IMF's governor council would give its approval on August 7 so that the disbursement could be started on August 28.

The SDR allocation proposal to forex reserves of 186 member countries was initiated by the body's managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn on June. In the end of 1970s and 1981, the IMF conducted the same effort and the value was ten times smaller that2009's allocation.

Rumbaugh also said that the Bank Indonesia (BI) could deposit the SDR in its genuine form or convert it to other currencies, like US dollar, euro or yen.

"The BI could deposit the SDR or use it to finance international payment. With support of the SDR (and recovering global economy), Indonesia's forex reserves would stable until the end of this year," said Rumbaugh.

BI recorded forex reserves decrease of US$200 million as of July 2009 compared to the previous month to US$57.4 billion. Indonesia's forex reserves briefly touched the highest level of US$60.56 billion in July 2008.

(Xinhua News Agency August 6, 2009)