Jakarta – The offshore debt of the Indonesian government in the fiscal year ending next March is estimated to reach 71.9 billion dollars, a report said here Saturday.

"The government's overseas debt in the 1999/2000 fiscal year is estimated to reach 71.9 billion dollars or about 45% of gross domestic product," the chairman of the National Development Planning Baord Junaedy Hadisumarto, was quoted by the Jakarta Post as saying.

Junaedy said the foreign debt included a 10.3 billion dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund. He said the government's offshore debt in the previous fiscal year stood at 68.4 billion dollars or 58.6% of gross domestic product.

The majority of the foreign debt in the current fiscal year was to finance subsidy programs to help the poor to survive the economic crisis.

Junaedy also said the government's domestic public debt in the current fiscal year stood at another 74.7 billion dollars compared to 21.9 billion dollars in the previous fiscal year.

He attributed the large difference to the huge cost of the government's bank recapitalisation program. The program, to shore up the country's ailing banking sector, is estimated to cost more than 500 trillion rupiah (71 billion dollars,) officials have said. Part of the cost is hoped to be covered from government bonds.