Icra gets credit rating licence in Indonesia

Credit rating agency Icra has obtained licence to offer credit rating services in Indonesia. The licence has been issued to IcraIndo, a subsidiary of Icra, by the Republic’s capital market and financial institutions supervisory agency, Bapepam-LK. While Icra holds 99 per cent of the share capital in IcraIndo, one per cent is held by the employees of the overseas company.

“Indonesia, for us, has a promising prospect in view of the evolving nature of its financial and money markets in recent times. We have a positive view of the fact that the country was able to ride out the recent global liquidity crisis without suffering any major slowdown in its growth rate. Given this demonstrated resilience and the positive outlook on the emerging business environment, the prospects for IcraIndo appears eminently favourable.” said P K Choudhury, president commissioner, IcraIndo, and vice-chairman, Icra.

The debt market in Indonesia expanded to nearly $100 billion in 2008-09 from less than $70 billion in 2007-08. New bond issues rose sharply to nearly $65 billion from $35 billion in the same period. The government of Indonesia is the principal issuer in the debt market through regular issuance of treasury bonds and treasury bills by the ministry of finance.