JAKARTA - The Composite Stock Price Index (JCI) fell by 5.02% to 6,156.91 at 11:19 am today (18/3), forcing the Indonesia Stock Exchange to impose its first trading halt since COVID-19 in 2020.

In fact, until 11:59 am WIB this afternoon, the JCI had recorded a decline of up to 6.09% to 6,080.49. This performance is far different from other global stock indices, which actually show growth.

In fact, quoted from Bloomberg, the JCI recorded the deepest decline in Asia and ASEAN.

At the time the JCI fell, the Nikkei 225 (TSE) rose 1.43% to 37,931, the Hang Seng (HKSE) rose 1.81% to 24,583, and the Shanghai Composite (SSE) rose 0.09% to 3,429.36.

In the ASEAN region, the Strait Times Index (SGX) also rose 1.02% to 3,898.87, while the KLCI (Bursa Malaysia) rose 1.04% to 1,527.81.

It should be noted that the fall of the JCI occurred amidst foreign net sell that skyrocketed to IDR24 trillion on a year-to-date basis.

In a brief interview, the managing director of a mining issuer said that foreign investors are now reluctant to invest in Indonesia due to domestic policy uncertainty.

‘In the past year there has been so much uncertainty in Indonesia and globally, foreign investors are worried that in the next four years the situation will be even more unclear,’ he told IDNFinancials.com today (18/3). (ZH/LM)