payment system and currency exchange industry. • the working guidelines are expected to become a form of good communication, intensive coordination and synergetic collaboration between bank indonesia and the national police, related ministries, law enforcement officers and other stakeholders. • that concludes my opening remarks with the belief that god almighty will always bless us and light out way towards a better future. wassalamu ’ alaikum wr. wb. thank you. bis central bankers ’ speeches

operative and the government ’ s determination to tackle this problem. at the same time, we recognized that the trade finance arrears that had been built up by some indonesian banks during the currency and financial turmoil were prejudicing current access by indonesian entities to trade financing across the entire economy. we agreed to settle these arrears and have paid the due amount. most recently, in december 1998, we cleared additional arrears. this was, we believe, an important signal to the international banking community. in addition, for those banks that agreed to maintain their trade financing activities in indonesia, we agreed to guarantee all new trade finance facilities for a year after we received confirmation of these banks ’ commitment. turning again briefly to the corporate sector which had been reluctant to enter discussions with its creditors, we also agreed in june 1998 to set up an agency, the indonesian debt restructuring agency or indra, to provide foreign exchange protection to those borrowers that had renegotiated their debts with their creditors. strengthening these borrowers by reducing their residual foreign exchange risk improves their creditworthiness, thereby creating an incentive to complete a restructuring. these efforts were followed by the jakarta initiative in september 1998 which aimed at setting the right framework and incentives for bilateral debtor / creditor negotiations. these measures combined, and the real money that has been paid to foreign creditors, in particular by bank indonesia, show our real determination to resolve the current situation. indeed our support has been proven with the expenditure of very large sums of our scarce foreign exchange resources reflecting the high priority we give this subject. i would urge you, therefore, not to adopt a reflexive reduction in your activities in indonesia. instead, please do focus on the systems in place now and the opportunities open to you within our new strengthened framework. another very important point i would like to mention here is the high levels of capital - backing required in some jurisdictions on new lending to indonesia. we believe these levels of provisions are excessive and that they constitute a great hindrance to a resumption of activity in our economy. let me also take this opportunity to share with you some developments in our banking restructuring program. it is not a secret that the pre - crisis indonesian financial system was unhealthily fragile and vulnerable to external shocks. we certainly underestimated the vulnerability of our domestic banking system to a crisis in the corporate sector and its potential to paralyze the banking sector ; we also probably underestimated the riskiness of many loans