JAKARTA (Thomson Financial) - Bank Indonesia (BI) is keeping its key interest rate unchanged for the third straight month, as widely expected amid the recent pick-up in consumer inflation, the central bank's senior deputy governor Miranda Goeltom, said Monday.
She told reporters that the decision takes into account the central bank's view that uncertainty about the fallout from the US subprime crisis will prevail in global financial markets, 'which therefore requires consistency in our cautious stance.'
Before it paused in its series of cuts in July, BI had reduced its key rate, called the BI rate, by a cumulative 450 basis points since May 2006 to 8.25 percent.
Goeltom said BI believes that at the current level, the rate should still be able to stimulate economic growth.
'Going forward, there is room for the BI rate to be lowered further,' she said.
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