Indonesia is optimistic its economy will grow 4.5 percent in 2009 despite projections by international institutes that the country was likely to expand by only 3.0 to 3.4 percent due to the impact of the global financial crisis, according to news agencies.
Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said after a limited cabinet meeting on economy early this week “our projection remains between 4.0 and 4.5 percent until the end of this year.”
The minister said Indonesia’s economic growth in the first quarter could still reach above 4.0 percent and this was a good beginning to show that the country’s economy remained quite resilient against the negative impact of the global economic crisis, Antara news agency reported.
She said the economy will grow between 4.3 and 4.8 percent in the first quarter on consumption that grew 5.5 percent.
Meanwhile, the Philippines may have to reduce its GDP growth forecast again this year to a range of 3.1 percent to 4.1 percent, said Xinhua news agency.
The revision was proposed by National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) of the Philippines. This is slightly lower than the revised 3.7 percent to 4.4 percent GDP growth forecast that Philippine economic managers announced in February.
However, this is still higher than a meager 2.5 percent growth forecast by the Asian Development Bank last month.