00:01While the world's been obsessing over the high price of oil,
00:05it's actually a different chart that's causing fear and stress
00:09here on the streets of Indonesia.
00:12Indonesia's currency, the rupiah, has fallen to historic lows
00:15against the United States dollar.
00:17The currency passed a psychological threshold of 17,000 rupiah
00:22to one US dollar in March,
00:23and it's worsened through June to more than 18,000 rupiah to the dollar.
00:28It's stubbornly remained around that low ever since.
00:32Of course, while that has caused significant pain here in Indonesia,
00:36for tourists, that's also likely to mean that your dollar,
00:39the Australian dollar, will extend a bit further.
00:42Now, the war in the Middle East has spread pain across Asia,
00:45but Indonesian economists have warned that it's mostly domestic factors
00:48that have turned the rupiah into one of the worst performing currencies in the region.
00:53That's affecting the nation's tempeh makers really significantly.
00:56Tempeh is an iconic Indonesian food.
00:59It's made from soybeans, which are mostly imported from the United States.
01:03It's a major source of affordable protein for Indonesians.
01:06But the decline in currency has been pushing up the price of these imported soybeans.
01:11Longtime tempeh makers have said that this situation can't carry on for much longer for them.
01:18If this keeps going on, our family finances will become total chaos.
01:22We rely entirely on producing tempeh or tofu while our raw material costs have already jumped up.
01:28At the markets, people are also talking about the really high price of plastics.
01:33The cost of petrochemicals used to make plastics has soared
01:37because of supply shocks with the war in the Middle East.
01:41And the sinking currency has really served to act as a double whammy for the price of plastics.
01:46At the markets, people say that they're taking in far less income
01:50and that this is causing a really significant impact for what they take home.
01:54Indonesia's Finance Minister Purbaya says that the government is working to ensure
01:59that inflation remains within a controlled range.
02:02But ahead of Indonesia's Independence Day on the 17th of this month,
02:06people will be watching these economic indicators very closely.
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