Bank Indonesia to hold key rate at 6% on Oct. 16 amid rupiah concerns

By Rahul Trivedi

BENGALURU (Reuters) -Bank Indonesia (BI) will leave interest rates unchanged on Wednesday despite inflation falling to its lowest level since 2021, as receding expectations of aggressive U.S. Federal Reserve easing weaken the rupiah, a Reuters poll found.

Inflation eased to a multi-year low of 1.84% in September and has been within BI's target of 1.5% to 3.5% throughout 2024, suggesting the central bank could further lower rates before year-end.

Despite BI's intervention to stabilise the rupiah last week, the currency has fallen more than 3% from a September peak following a strong U.S. employment report.

That suggests the Asian central bank is unlikely to implement back-to-back rate cuts having surprised markets with its first easing in more than three years in September.

Marking a shift in expectations, over 75% of economists, 24 of 31, in an Oct. 7-14 Reuters poll predicted the central bank would keep its benchmark seven-day reverse repurchase rate at 6.00% on Oct. 16.

In the previous poll, taken after the central bank's cut last month, more than 50% of respondents anticipated another reduction this week.

BI was also forecast to keep the overnight deposit facility and lending facility rates unchanged at 5.25% and 6.75%, respectively.

"Recent market developments have shifted the odds in favour of BI keeping its policy rate unchanged ... Stronger-than-anticipated U.S. labour market data triggered a market repricing of U.S. rate expectations and renewed pressure on the rupiah," ANZ said in a note to clients, adding that longer-term they continued to see 5.00-5.25% as a reasonable range for the terminal policy rate.

"BI has an easing bias, and further rate cuts are just a matter of time. Should global risk sentiment rebound in the days leading up to BI's October meeting, a 25 bp rate cut is certainly possible."

Among those who predicted BI will hold rates this week, a majority, 12 of 20, were expecting a half-point cut by year-end. 

Median projections showed rates were expected to fall to 5.00% by end-June - consistent with the previous poll - while the Fed was seen cutting rates by 150 basis points by the end of 2025. 

"We anticipate that BI will only proceed with a rate cut when signals from the Fed on a rate cut ... become more definitive," said Josua Pardede, chief economist at Bank Permata.

Inflation was expected to average 2.5% this year and 2.6% next year while economic growth was seen steady at 5.0% in 2024 and 5.1% in both 2025 and 2026. The growth forecasts were broadly unchanged from a July survey but the inflation outlook was lowered.

(Other stories from the October Reuters global economic poll)

(Reporting by Rahul Trivedi; Polling by Veronica Khongwir and Devayani Sathyan; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)