Indonesia halts stock market trading week long

JAKARTA, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia's stock exchange trading has been halt through the week after the bourse authorities decided to keep canceling trading on Friday and expecting the trading to resume Monday, president director of the bourse Erry Firmansyah said here.

The decision follows the plunge of global stock market in the United States and Asia.

"The bourse is close today. God willing it would be opened Monday," Firmansyah told reporters after meeting with Coordinating Minister for Economy Sri Mulyani at finance ministry office here.

The director said that the government would make some preparation at the weekend for the planned-opening on Monday.

Sri Mulyani asked people to be calm in facing the impact of the global crisis.

"The government would persistently make evaluation up to the market can resume trading," she told reporters.

Separately, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono stressed that the crisis in the stock market should not be generalized that the country's economy, which has had strong economic fundamentals for recent years, was in crisis.

"Please do not say that Indonesia has suffered economic crisis. Let's keep calm and find a solution for the global crisis which is strongly threatened and disturbed our economy," he said Friday.

The stock market has suspended trading since Wednesday after the Jakarta Composite Index slumped to more than 20 percent this week.

Firmansyah said that most of the investors in the exchange Friday supported the suspension to prevent more loss.

Indonesian Finance Ministry on Thursday decided to resume trading on Friday after interest-rate cuts by the U.S. Federal Reserve, European and Asian central banks helped boost equities in the globe.

But, hours later the index at the global stock market felt again, according to Firmansyah.

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