Indonesia’s central bank forecasted 4.8% economic growth in 2015

Bank Indonesia (BI), Indonesias central bank, had estimated the economy to grow by 4.8 percent in 2015, slightly higher than the Finance Ministrys forecast of 4.74 percent.

“The central bank had estimated a 4.8 percent growth throughout 2015,” BIs Deputy Governor, Perry Warjiyo, stated here on Friday.

Despite last years economic growth being far from the revised budget assumption of 5.7 percent in 2015, the economy is believed to grow at a better pace in 2016, Perry affirmed.

“This year, the economy could grow at 5.2 percent,” remarked Perry.

Domestic economic growth is being supported by several factors, such as the global economic growth, which is believed to improve though not that strongly.

Besides this, the government has implemented the fiscal stimulus in the first quarter of 2016 in addition to BI relaxing the macroprudential policy to boost liquidity, thereby helping banks in lending.

“And finally, of course, yesterday, the central bank had given a signal of monetary easing by scaling down the BI rate by 25 basis points, which will give a positive perception to the business community to buy government securities,” Perry remarked.

Currently, the BI rate is at the level of 7.25 percent, with the deposit facility rate at 5.25 percent and lending facility rate at 7.75 percent.