Slow stimulus spending threatens Indonesia’s recovery as smaller businesses that are the backbone of the economy have been kept waiting for much-needed funds to weather an extended lockdown, Bloomberg News reported. Only about 30% of more than 186 trillion rupiah ($13 billion) of combined national and provincial government aid has yet been disbursed for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, Finance Ministry data show.

Flag carrier Garuda Indonesia (GIAA.JK) will return nine leased Boeing 737 800NG aircraft ahead of schedule, as part of an agreement to end a bankruptcy lawsuit, the company's chief executive Irfan Setiaputra told Reuters on Monday. Garuda and its lessor, Aercap Ireland Limited, signed a global side letter agreement on July 28 to stop legal proceeding, following Aercap's bankruptcy lawsuit in June at the New South Wales Supreme Court, Garuda said separately in a stock exchange filing.

Indonesia’s finance minister expects the budget deficit to stay elevated next year as the nation’s worst coronavirus surge hampers the recovery and efforts to boost state revenue, Bloomberg News reported. The fiscal shortfall could reach 4.7%-4.8% of gross domestic product in 2022, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati told Bloomberg Television’s Haslinda Amin. That’s near the top end of the government’s 4.5%-4.85% projection. “We’ll try very hard to return to fiscal discipline in 2023. But at the same time, we’ll also be very pragmatic,” Indrawati said.

Troubled flag carrier PT Garuda Indonesia put off the payment on its Islamic debt once again, highlighting its financing crunch as the firm tries to avoid bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported. The Southeast Asian airline, struggling as the pandemic depresses air travel worldwide, said it “will continue to defer the periodic distribution amount due June 3,” in a filing to the Singapore stock exchange on Thursday. The state-owned company missed the distribution payment on a $500 million sukuk on June 3, and a 14-day grace period ended on Thursday.

Creditors of PT Sri Rejeki Isman, Indonesia’s biggest listed clothing firm, have submitted about 20 trillion rupiah ($1.4 billion) of outstanding claims as part of a debt-restructuring process, Bloomberg News reported. The claims include about 700 billion rupiah submitted by secured creditors and around 19 trillion rupiah from unsecured creditors as of June 10, according to Alfin Sulaiman, a member of an administrator team appointed by Indonesia’s Semarang commercial court. Verification is ongoing and the final amount will be released soon, Sulaiman said on Friday.

National flag carrier Garuda Indonesia will seek a suspension of debt payments to creditors and lessors under a 'standstill agreement' in order to avoid bankruptcy, a senior government official said on Thursday, Channel News Asia reported. The coronavirus pandemic has put the state-controlled airline's finances under serious strain with a negative cashflow of about US$100 million a month and ballooning debt, Kartika Wirjoatmodjo, Indonesia's deputy minister of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), told a parliamentary hearing.

Indonesia’s flag carrier PT Garuda Indonesia confirmed it is taking steps to restructure its debt and revamp its business in order to stay afloat amid the pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. The airline is negotiating terms with plane lessors and is talking with banks and business partners to restructure its loans, according to a stock exchange filing submitted late Thursday. The coronavirus outbreak has forced dozens of airlines and other aviation businesses to restructure or seek bankruptcy protection.

PT Garuda Indonesia needs to completely restructure its business, potentially reducing the number of planes it operates to less than half its main fleet as the airline seeks to survive the crisis wrought by the pandemic, its president told staff last week, Bloomberg News reported. “We have to go through a comprehensive restructuring, a total one,” President Director Irfan Setiaputra said in an address to staff on May 19, according to a recording heard by Bloomberg.

Indonesia's exports racked up their strongest rise in 11 years in April, boosted by a surge in prices of key commodities such as palm oil and copper, though the unexpectedly robust figure is not expected to change the central bank's policy settings, Reuters reported. The resource-rich nation's shipments rose 51.94% on a yearly basis to $18.48 billion, marking the sharpest increase since 2010 and beating a forecast 41% rise in a Reuters poll. The export value was the highest since August 2011.