Aussie Minister Praises Indonesia's Economy

Indonesia's economy, with 234 million people, has been growing strongly and could be in the top 10 globally by 2025, said Australian Trade Minister Craig Emerson. He will be visiting Jakarta this week to hold talks with Indonesian Trade Minister Mari Pangestu.

“As the two largest economies in south-east Asia, there is considerable scope for Australia and Indonesia to strengthen and expand their economic relationship,” Emerson said in his statement to VIVAnews on Sunday.

According to the Australian Embassy, Emerson is scheduled to visit Jakarta from Tuesday until Wednesday, 19-20 April 2011.

This is Emerson’s first visit to the country as Trade Minister, and comes as Australia and Indonesia prepare for negotiations on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA). Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Indonesian President Suslio Bambang Yudhoyono launched the CEPA process in November last year.

Besides the CEPA negotiations, both ministers will discuss Indonesia’s ratification of the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA) and the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations.

Emerson and Pangestu will also discuss the finalisation of a joint pilot project designed to help improve Indonesia’s cattle-breeding performance. Indonesia is Australia’s fourth-largest market for agricultural exports, behind Japan, China and the US. In 2009-10, the value of two-way trade between Australia and Indonesia was A$11.8 billion.

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Bank Indonesia Maintains BI Rate at 6.75 Pct

Bank Indonesia (BI) decided to maintain the benchmark BI Rate at 6.75 percent.

"Board of BI Governors' meeting agreed to retain the BI Rate at 6.75 percent to control inflation rate resulted from volatile food," said BI Governor Darmin Nasution on Tuesday.

BI figured that Indonesia's economic growth this year will hit between 6 and 6.5 percent.

"The economy will grow, especially on transportation, telecommunication, services, restaurant and construction," said Darmin.

However, BI also estimated that the improving global economy will be hampered by debt crisis in a number of countries as well as Japan earthquake and tsunami effect.

Fluctuating global food and commodities' prices are expected to put pressures on inflation.

Between January and March, the government can still control inflation mainly on volatile food.

On banking sector, BI also viewed that credit growth also advances as last year it recorded 25.1 percent of increase compared to the same period of 2010.

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