Jakarta - Indonesia is now getting economically stronger before the International Monetary Fund (IMF), President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said at his office here on Tuesday. "We are now getting stronger before the IMF. Our debts have been paid since 2005. We have also dissolved the Consultative Group of Indonesia. We are independent and no longer in need of handouts," the president said moments before receiving IMF Executive Director Christine Lagarde at 10.30 am local time. Lagarde who is here on a three-day visit ending Tuesday, was accompanied by a number of other IMF leaders including Asia Pacific director Anoop Singh, senior representative of IMF for Indonesia Milan Zavadjil, and chief of IMF mission and division for Indonesia Sanjaya Panth. Meanwhile, President Yudhoyono was accompanied by Bank Indonesia governor Darmin Nasution, economics minister Hatta Rajasa, finance minister Agus Martowardojo, trade minister Gita Wirjawan, foreign affairs minister Marty Natalegawa, and minister/state secretary Sudi Silalahi. Yudhoyono-Lagarde's 40-minute meeting followed on the backs of a recent meeting held in Los Cabos, Mexico between the G-20 countries who pledged assistance towards the European crisis. Indonesia and IMF have had a strained relationship ever since the economic crisis of 1997, when the then-president Soeharto asked for IMF assistance under its Executive Director Michel Camdessus. But Indonesia since President Yudhoyono's reign of 2007, has paid off all its debts to IMF, and further dissolved the CGI. Lagarde already met Vice President Boediono to discuss the global economic issue and Indonesia's economic condition. "There was no discussion on money. We talked about the fiscal issue and the global slowdown. We had already met before and shared similar views on the present economic condition," she said. (*)


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