In Reply to: Exchange rate posted by Bondy on Monday, 20. June 2005 at 05:40 Bali Time:
There are so many things that could affect the Rupiah between now and the end of the year, it's not possible to predict anything accurately.
The trend has been for the Rp to drop over the past few years. Compared to the Aussie dollar, it's gone from around 6000rp per dollar at the start of 2004 to around 7500rp now. (The published rates are usually higher than the street rates, and any transaction will have a fee attatched to it, either up-front or hidden.)
The decline has been fairly steady, and probably has as much to do with changes in the Australian dollar as it does with anything happening to the Rupiah. I don't think the change has been as marked if you compare it to the US dollar, which has fallen a lot against the Euro and most other currencies, and would drop like a shot duck if countries like Indonesia and China weren't propping it up (but that's another story).
Inflation has been fairly steady, in single digits, for a while in Indonesia, and they've been trying to keep the currency stable as well, though it seems to be slowly leaking. It jumped around a bit in the middle of last year when some bad economic predictions had an effect. They evened it out by dumping some of their reserves of foreign currency. And they'd probably do the same thing again.
Unless the whole of Asia falls in a hole like it did in the 1990's, and they try to bail themselves out with dodgy IMF/World Bank deals again, any changes should be relatively small. Personally, I'm expecting around 8000Rp to the Aussie dollar by the end of the year. But if the Aussie dollar crashes I might look a little stupid.
Maybe we should have a sweepstakes. Everyone could make a prediction for the rate on Dec 1st, and the winner get's shouted beer all night at a good Indonesian-owned pub in Bali.
In the end, though, it doesn't really matter how many Rp you get per dollar, coz you'll always spend and give away more than you expect, and you'll always come home broke. Or is it just me?