VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Bank Indonesia (BI) has signaled that it will not raise interest rates in the near future. BI Governor Perry Warjiyo said this was to maintain the recovery of the national economic recovery.

"We don't need to raise interest rates at this time. Because there are subsidies, there is food control, so from a policy perspective, interest rates do not have to be in a hurry to raise interest rates. This is to maintain and support economic recovery," said Perry in a press statement at the National Coordination Meeting (Rakornas) of the Regional Inflation Control Team in Jakarta, Thursday (18/8/2022).

The subsidies in question are energy subsidies to prevent the increase in domestic energy prices. Bank Indonesia recently launched the National Food Inflation Control Movement.

"This is part of the policy synergy between BI and the government, in an effort to control the inflation rate," he said.

From the monetary side, BI's policy direction is to maintain the exchange rate. Meanwhile, prudential macro policies are directed at supporting economic growth, including the payment system, empowering MSMEs, the economy and Islamic finance," Perry added.

Currently, according to Perry, the intervention carried out by BI has proven that the rupiah exchange rate is still maintained. The depreciation of the rupiah to date is around 3.5 percent, still lower than the depreciation of other countries' currencies, such as Malaysia's currency depreciation reaching 6.41 percent, India 7.07 percent and Thailand 8.88 percent.

"The stability of the rupiah exchange rate needs to be maintained so as not to interfere with economic recovery, and prices do not rise due to global turmoil," said Perry.

In addition, BI also controls liquidity, so that it is neither more nor less.

"It's not too much so there's no speculation. No less so that banks can still channel their credit. Alhamdulillah, now the distribution of bank credit is more than 10 percent, and credit distribution for MSMEs is even more than 16 percent," Perry concluded. (RRI)