Jakarta, Mar 13: Indonesia faces a busy weekend when it will announce a new cabinet and host Japanese Premier Ryutaro Hashimoto, events bound to dictate how it battles a devastating economic crisis.The chief representative of the International Monetary Fund in Indonesia, Kadhim Al-Eyd, told Reuters that members of a senior delegation from the Fund will begin arriving in Jakarta over the weekend to continue discussions on economic reforms.
US Treasury Undersecretary of International Affairs DavidLipton was also to arrive in Jakarta on Saturday to discuss the reforms with finance ministry officials, diplomatic sources said.
Japan's Eisuke Sakakibara, the vice finance minister for international affairs, was already on his way to Jakarta and will accompany Hashimoto during his meetings there, officials in Tokyo said.
The visits signal mounting pressure on Jakarta and the new cabinet to quickly begin implementing the reforms, economic analysts said.There were no reports of fresh violence on Fridayafter students staging rallies against President Suharto had clashed with police the previous day.
Suharto is due to announce his new cabinet on Saturday morning. The cabinet, expected to be sharply trimmed back from the previous 49 members, will be sworn in on Monday and is expected to hold its first full session on Tuesday, a presidential spokesman said.
The IMF signed a new agreement with Indonesia in mid-January under which Jakarta agreed to push through sweeping economic reforms in return for a bail-out package of more than $40 billion. But the IMF has expressed concern that Indonesia is dragging its feet on economic restructuring and has been flirting with the idea of adopting a currency board system to peg the wilting rupiah to a fixed rate. The United States, which has contributed to the bail-out, has led the chorus of nations advising Jakarta to follow the IMF's lead in sorting out its economy.
