Jakarta (ANTARA) - To accelerate national economic growth, Bank Indonesia (BI) has signaled that it will soon relax the macro-prudential policy which currently faces low export and investment growth as a result of the global economic downturn.

The support for the macro-prudential policy is aimed at encouraging production and exports from priority sectors such as manufacturing industry and tourism, BI Deputy Governor Dody Budi Waluyo said in Jakarta Monday.

"From the standpoint of other policies, we still have the macro-prudential policy that we will continue to assess in the future. But I cannot say anything on that now," he said.

He refused to divulge the details. However, the scope of the BI current policies, either monetary or macro-prudential, will be used to spur the economic growth on condition that the BI target of creating economic stability will not be disrupted.

Since 2018, when BI tightened benchmark interest rate policy, it loosened the macro-prudential policy to compensate the regime of benchmark interest rate hike of up to 1.75 percent to six percent. The policy included the relaxation of property down-payment or loan to value (LtV) and the loosening of the intermediary capability of banks through the macro-prudential intermediary ratio (RIM) increased to the upper limit of up to 94 percent. The policy was also aimed at encouraging the growth of bank credits.

BI also pledged a stimulus to boost the economy through the payment system policy by, among others, developing a technology-based financial industry (fintech) to facilitate transactions and public consumption.

Domestic economic growth should reach between 5.0 and 5.4 percent in 2019, BI has projected.

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Translator: Indra Arief Pribadi, Suharto
Editor: Azizah Fitriyanti
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