Why investors lap up Indonesian dollar bonds

To investors focused on emerging markets, dollar-denominated bonds from Indonesia look as appealing as one of the nation's famous beaches and issuers have been only too eager to sate that demand.

A long-awaited upgrade of the sovereign credit rating from junk status and a global environment of low interest rates have lured investors to Southeast Asia's biggest economy and driven a record level of debt issuance from the archipelago in the first nine months of this year.

In the first nine months of 2017, issuance of Indonesian G3-currency bonds surged 91% year-on-year to $15.7 billion, data compiled by Dealogic shows. That's a record level...