"Year-on-year inflation could be a little bit higher than 4.5 percent. The inflation this year would still be affected by the drought in America that had affected the price of wheat and soybeans," he said.
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Bank Indonesia Governor Darmin Nasution predicted monthly inflation in August would be between 0.7 and 0.8 percent due to several food price hikes during Idul Fitri festivities.

"Year-on-year inflation could be a little bit higher than 4.5 percent. The inflation this year would still be affected by the drought in America that had affected the price of wheat and soybeans," he said after a book launch and discussion on a fiscal and monetary policy coordination at Bank Indonesia Building here on Friday.

Darmin said the impact of the food price movement has been felt since July when drought in the food producing country caused shortage of soybean supply in the country.

BI deputy governor Hartadi A Sarwono had earlier also predicted that August inflation would relatively be safe as supplies of goods were adequate to make the rate of inflation would not be as high as in the past two years.

According to the National Statistics Agency the national rate of inflation in July was recorded at 0.7 percent, up 0.05 percent from that of May recorded at 0.65 percent.

In the calendar year (January to July) the rate was recorded at 2.5 percent while the yearly rate (July 2012 against July 2011) was recorded at 4.56 percent.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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