Last year, Jakarta raised 46.01 trillion rupiah from five retail bond issuances. High foreign bond ownership has made Southeast Asia's largest economy vulnerable to sudden capital outflows, sometimes triggered by global events outside of Jakarta's control. Sell-offs in Indonesian bond and equity markets last year due to rising US interest rates, the US-China trade war and its own ballooning current account deficit, sent the rupiah to its lowest since 1998 Asian financial crisis.
Foreign investors currently hold around 37 percent of Indonesia's high-yielding sovereign bonds, while local individual investors own less than 5 percent, according to finance ministry data. This year, the government will be flexible in its budget financing strategy, given changes in market predictions on the number of times the US Federal Reserve could possibly hike interest rates, Ginting said.