TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Bank Indonesia's (BI) Board of Governors (RDG) meeting held on November 19-20, decided to keep the benchmark interest rate or BI rate at 6 percent. The central bank also decided to maintain the deposit facility rate at 5.25 percent and the lending facility rate at 6.75 percent.

"We decided to keep the BI rate at 6 percent," BI Governor Perry Warjiyo said in a press briefing on the results of the Board of Governors (RDG) meeting held at the BI office on Wednesday, November 20.

This decision, Perry said, is aligned with the monetary policy objective of ensuring that inflation remains under control within the target range of 1.5 to 3.5 percent for 2024 and 2025. It was also made in support of sustaining economic growth.

Perry said the current focus of monetary policy is to strengthen the stability of the rupiah exchange rate. The rupiah has experienced a weakening trend due to geopolitical dynamics, including political developments in the United States (US) following the election of Donald Trump as president.

As of November 19, the rupiah weakened by 0.84 percent from the previous month's level. The depreciation was a direct result of the US dollar's strong gains as well as the reversal of global investors' preferences by shifting their portfolio allocations back to the US.

Earlier, the University of Indonesia's (UI) Institute for Economic and Community Research (LPEM) also recommended that BI's policy rate should be kept at 6 percent in November this year. The exchange rate's ongoing depreciation to Rp15,770 per US dollar in mid-November 2024 was also the reason why LPEM UI recommended BI maintain its policy rate.

In October, BI also decided to maintain the BI rate at 6 percent. This means that the BI rate has stayed at a level of 6 percent for two consecutive months.

Hammam Izzudin contributed to the writing of this article.  

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