stock exchange nyse

'Promote capital market as funding source'

The Indonesian equity market, despite being huge in capitalization, is still largely untapped as an alternative source of investment, economists said at a seminar on the weekend.

Mohammad Ikhsan, an economist from the University of Indonesia, said the capital market is the ideal financing source for investment at a time when banks are yet to be optimum in extending loans to revive the real sector, but acknowledged that the local capital market was still underdeveloped.

"Most local companies here are reluctant to go public and are notorious for their rough accounting systems, especially the medium-sized ones," he said, adding that the existing taxation system had also discouraged companies from going public.

He said Indonesia would still have to rely on banking credits to boost the real sector, in addition to foreign direct investment.

foreign exchange forex

RMB hits new high against USD, breaking 7.74 mark

BEIJING, March 8 (Xinhua) -- The value of the Chinese yuan against the U.S. dollar hit a new high on Thursday with a central parity rate of 7.7386 yuan to the dollar, according to the Chinese Foreign Exchange Trading System.

The yuan, also known as the Renminbi (RMB), gained 50 basis points from Wednesday's reference rate of 7.7436 to the U.S. dollar.

The yuan has gained 701 basis points since the beginning of 2007 from 7.8087 yuan against the dollar on Dec. 29, 2006.

There had been speculation over whether the yuan would see a sharp appreciation on Wednesday afternoon when the U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson began his third China trip in seven months in preparation for the second round of the China-U.S. Strategic Economic Dialogue scheduled for May in Washington.