SBI rate falls to 10.44%<\/p>\n
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
The interest rate on the one-month Bank Indonesia SBI promissory
\nnotes fell to 10.44 percent on Wednesday during the weekly
\nbidding, compared to 10.68 percent in the previous week.<\/p>\n
The central bank has been guiding its benchmark rate downward
\nfor over a year now amid low inflation and the rupiah's stronger
\nexchange rate against the U.S. dollar.<\/p>\n
The slide in the benchmark rate was the second since
\nBurhanuddin Abdullah was elected as the new central bank Governor
\ntwo weeks ago.<\/p>\n
Burhanuddin has said that there was still room for the SBI
\nrate to decline to around 10 percent. He said that the lower
\ninterest rate was crucial both to help ease the burden of the
\ngovernment in servicing its domestic debt, and to push more bank
\nlending into the corporate sector.<\/p>\n
Despite the declining trend of the benchmark rate, from over
\n17 percent early last year, lending from the banking sector to
\nthe real sector has remained weak.<\/p>\n
Burhanuddin said that he would hold a meeting with bankers to
\nseek ways on how to push banks, which have just started to
\nrecover from the financial crisis of the late 1990s, to lend more
\nof their money to the business sector to help create economic
\ngrowth.<\/p>\n
Bank Indonesia also announced that the country's foreign
\nexchange reserves in the third week of May increased by US$445.4
\nmillion to $34.47 billion.<\/p>\n
The increase was mainly attributed to oil and gas revenue,
\nBank Indonesia said in a press statement.<\/p>",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
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