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Heads Up, Your Rupiah May Soon Lose a Few Zeros
Dion Bisara | December 07, 2011

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all4ywh
9:34am Dec 7, 2011

"He said [Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo] any redenomination process would take anywhere from five to 10 years to complete."

This article needs a new title. B }

Is there any current talk to introduce a higher value note than Rp 100,000?


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Indonesia is a step closer to slashing a number of zeros from the rupiah after the government said on Tuesday that it would submit a currency redenomination bill to the House of Representatives by next year.

Redenomination is a process whereby a new unit of currency replaces the old one. Officials have in the past mooted the idea of removing three zeros from the rupiah. For example, Rp 1,000 would become Rp 1.

“The redenomination plan is now in the harmonization stage,” Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo said on Tuesday.

He did not offer any details on what the finalized plan might look like.

Agus said the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights was looking at the bill to ensure it did not conflict with existing laws and regulations. The draft text was prepared in cooperation with Bank Indonesia.

He said any redenomination process would take anywhere from five to 10 years to complete.

The idea behind the proposal is to simplify daily transactions, which often run into the millions of rupiah. One dollar will get you about 9,000 rupiah.

There are concerns, however, that the proposal could devalue the currency. Darmin Nasution, the central bank governor, has sought to assuage those concerns, saying a redenomination would not inflict any financial losses but would simply strike a few zeros from the currenty.

Bank Indonesia has introduced higher-denomination bills five times since 1964.

Agus said the government would look at similar redenomination moves that other countries have made in the past.

“We will take examples from those countries that have successfully implemented redenomination, as well as take lessons from those that failed,” he said.

The Rp 100,000 note is now the second-highest denomination banknote in the region after Vietnam’s 500,000 dong note, which is worth about $26.

One successful redenomination, Agus said, was carried out by Turkey, which removed six zeros from its old currency in 2005.

Before that redenomination, one euro exchanged for 1.8 million Turkish lira. Afterward, one euro was equal to 1.8 Turkish lira.

It has been reported that it took the Turkish government years to prepare for the currency change, including an intensive public education campaign to let people know what the change meant for them. The redenomination was also preceded by a period of stable inflation.

On the other extreme is Zimbabwe. The three redenominations that it has undertaken since 2006 have given rise to hyperinflation, and paper denominations of the Zimbabwean dollar now include a $100 trillion banknote.