JAKARTA, March 3 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia's central bank has forecast economy to expand five percent during the first three months this year amid subdued spending of development budget, governor of the lender Agus Martowardojo said here on Friday.
That is the bottom of the range of the bank growth estimate this year of 5 to 5.4 percent, Martowardojo said.
"It is mainly because the fiscal spending had been a little bit consolidated during the final quarter (2016), there was reduction on the development budget," he said at the bank headquarters.
Regularly, spending of the budget slows at the first quarter and will gradually peak at the final quarter.
The Southeast Asia's biggest economy expanded 5.02 percent last year.
Indonesia has enjoyed gradual hike of prices of commodities amid the issuance of a series of the government's investor-friendly policies.
The government struggled to ease inflation in the food sector in a bid to strengthen citizen's purchasing power.
