Indonesia announced on Monday plans to spend rapidly $3.56bn saved from the 2008 budget on infrastructure projects and tax breaks to stimulate the economy and mitigate the impacts of the global economic crisis.

Sri Mulyani Indrawati, the finance minister, said much more money could be available if conditions warranted it. She said this could come from either a $5.5bn (€4bn, £3.8bn) standby budget facility co-ordinated by the World Bank or new bonds. She claimed international demand for Indonesian debt was mounting because yields were many times higher than anything available in the west.