An unprecedented fall

In a macroeconomic context heavily burdened by soaring global oil prices—an energy crisis directly fueled by the repercussions of the conflict between the United States and Israel on Iran—the Indonesian rupiah plummeted to its lowest historical level against the US dollar on Thursday, June 4, 2026.

By settling at precisely 18,028 rupiah to the dollar, the national currency crossed a highly symbolic threshold that Josua Pardede, chief economist at Permata Bank, describes as a major « psychological threshold » for market investors, signaling a deepening of distrust in the country’s assets.

Despite repeated interventions and recent support efforts by central banks to stabilize exchange rates, the Indonesian currency has now recorded a dramatic decline of more than 7% since the beginning of the year, earning it, according to Bloomberg News data, the unenviable title of the worst-performing currency in all of Asia for the current fiscal year.