JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia’s annual economic growth accelerated in the third quarter to 5.72%, the fastest in more than a year but below market expectation, official data showed on Monday.
The second-quarter growth rate was 5.44% on a yearly basis. Economists in a Reuters poll had expected gross domestic product in the July-September quarter to be 5.89% bigger than the same period last year.
Unadjusted for seasonal factors, GDP expanded 1.81% from the previous three months, compared with the poll’s forecast of 1.62%.
Indonesia has been enjoying an export boom for more than a year due to high commodity prices, with 2022 export earnings expected to be the country’s largest ever. This had underpinned market stability and growth in Southeast Asia’s largest economy.
Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati has said the government would work to maintain Indonesia’s position as a relative “bright spot”, but warned that domestic economic activities could be affected by a potential global recession.
(Reporting by Stefanno Sulaiman, Gayatri Suroyo and Fransiska Nangoy; Editing by Martin Petty)
