Indonesia's central bank
predicted the financial crisis that is rippling out from the United States to
the rest of the world would shackle Indonesia's economic growth and cause a
credit shortage for local business players, media reports said Monday.
"The shortage of global liquidity will be felt as a
result of this crisis," said .Boediono, governor of Bank Indonesia, reports dpa.
"We must be prepared to face this over the next six
months to one year," The Jakarta Post quoted Boediono as saying.
Boediono, who like many Indonesians uses only one name, made
the remarks after attending a meeting with economic officials Sunday to discuss
measures on how to deal with the negative impact of the global liquidity
crisis.
He forecast that the global liquidity shortage would only
stabilize once developed economies were on a safer footing.
Another development needed to bring the liquidity crisis to
an end, Boediono said, is the recapitalization of assets that have been
abandoned by investors.
"We will strengthen the banking sector," the
governor said. "Our target is to maintain sustainable lending growth that
can support acceptable economic growth and controllable inflation."
Meanwhile, Vice President Jusuf Kalla said the impact of the
crisis would certainly not be as substantial on Indonesia as on countries such
as China and India, which are large exporters to the United States.
"All countries would be affected, so the question is to
what extent," Kalla was quoted as saying by the state-run Antara news
agency. "The impact varies with each affected country, and I believe the
impact on Indonesia will not be as strong as that on other countries."