BI : CREDIT GROWTH CAN BE PUSHED TO REACH 18-20 PCT

Jakarta, April 22 (ANTARA) - A central bank official said here on Thursday credit growth can be pushed to reach 18-20 percent until the end of the year.

"We indeed have a room to push it higher especially now when situation is all bullish and we wish to see a 'tick up'. Hopefully, the momentum for it is right now and causes no excessive risk as a 18-20 percent range is still within the corridor in view of inflation and economic growth," Bank Indonesia deputy governor Muliaman Hadad said.

He hoped the figures would become the range for supporting an economic growth of 5.5 percent with the possibility of upward revision as the government and the House of Representatives had agreed to change the growth assumption to 5.8 percent.

"The figures could be realized especially based on the old 5.5 percent growth assumption," he said.

Muliaman said the 18-20 percent credit growth target until the end of the year was a sustainable target for meeting macro- assumptions.

He said credit growth still reached 13.25 percent until the second week of April or had significantly increased up to Rp5 trillion a week.

"Our credits only grew 13.25 percent. That is still far our expectations. Based on Bank Business Plan the target is 25 percent," he said.

Muliaman said the growth would not only be affected by credit in rupiah but also in other currencies and the central bank believed under the current policy efforts to maintain growth would continue.

He said the credit growth figures were still low compared with the growth figure early in 2008 which reached 30 percent.

"To meet the Bank Business Plan target the growth should at least reach 18 percent," he said.

In view of that Muliaman said BI wishes to increase the growth through incentives.

"We seriously wish to push so that credit growth would sustain by providing incentives," he said.