Jakarta – Indonesian shares, which dropped 1.7 percent in value in the last trading week of the year and around 35 percent for the year, will need a strong breakthrough and sound government economic policies to attract players next year, analysts said Friday. "For the first half of next year, the market in general is not going to get better," Vickers Ballas Tamara analyst Mar Sangap told AFP.

"We need a breakthrough as well a sound and real economic policy from the government." For the first three trading months of 2001, the market would probably still be "strongly influenced by political issues," Sangap said.

"We have problems of separatist movements in Aceh and Irian Jaya, not to mention assurances whether or not President Abdurrahman Wahid is still capable of leading the country," he added. The market did not expect "much positive news" for 2001, Sangap said, though there "might still be an upside."

"We've heard that the United States is planning to lower their interest rate to maintain economic growth. This might have a positive impact for Southeast Asia's exports and also for Indonesia, even if we're not a major player to the US," he said.

The Jakarta Stock Exchange composite index lost 7.363 points over the week to close at 416.321 on Friday. Daily turnover averaged 293.28 million shares at an average value of 17.82 million dollars, compared with the previous week's average of 368.7 million shares worth 37.03 million dollars. The rupiah closed the week at around 9,340-9,360 to the dollar, up marginally from its previous week's rate of 9,370-9,375.

A dealer at a local brokerage said sentiment in the stock market was basically weak on the last trading day of the year, Friday – the market reopens on January 2 – even though the index closed marginally higher.

"This may be the worst ever last day of trading [for the year] I have seen. Nobody wants to support their stock," he said. "If you look at the large stocks index [the LQ-45] ... it closed lower but the [composite] index was higher, mainly driven by Telkom," he said.

Telkom dropped 75 rupiah over the week to close at 2,050 while Indosat lost 200 to close at 9,000 rupiah. Cigarette maker Sampoerna lost 700 to end the week at 14,900 while rival Gudang Garam also lost 950 to close at 13,000.