PRICE STABILITY LOWERED INFLATION RATE : HATTA

Jakarta, March 1 (ANTARA) - Chief economic minister Hatta Rajasa said price stability had been able to lower the inflation rate from 0.84 percent in January to 0.30 percent in February.

"The inflation rate in February was successfully lowered from that in January due to the success of the government in stabilizing commodity prices," the chief economic minister said at his office on Monday.

He said the government succeeded in stabilizing the prices thanks to its sugar imports which could lower commodity prices at home.

Besides, he added, harvest times in various regions had begun to arrive so that food stocks were guaranteed and prices thereby went down.

"We have a good distribution system so that food shortages in the regions did not happen," the minister said.

Hatta said that other factor that caused low inflation in February was that the exchange of the rupiah value against the US dollar also tended to strengthen and be stable.

Therefore, the minister expressed optimism that the target of inflation which was set at 5.7 percent in 2010 would be achieved.

"We will try to achieve the plus-minus 5 percent in line with the improvement of the world economy which hopefully would boost demand, though prices are likely to increase slightly," he said.

The central board of statistics (BPS) announced on Monday that the January inflation was recorded at 0.30 percent, or 1.14 percent based on the January-February calendar year and 3.81 percent on the year-on-year basis.

This is lower than that in January which was recorded at 0.84 percent.