Indonesia’s inflation settles at 3% in April

Indonesia’s annual inflation dipped in April to 3.00 per cent, staying within the central bank’s target and benefiting from lower food prices as the harvest season began, as reported by Reuters on Thursday.

This marks a slight improvement from March’s 3.05 per cent. However, core inflation, excluding volatile food and government-controlled prices, edged up to 1.82 per cent from 1.77 per cent in March.

Rice, chilies, and eggs all saw price declines in April, coinciding with the harvest season’s arrival. This helped bring down volatile food inflation, which fell to 9.63 per cent from 10.33 per cent the previous month.

Despite the positive news on inflation, the central bank, Bank Indonesia (BI) has recently raised interest rates. This move aimed to support the rupiah currency, which has weakened against the dollar due to global uncertainties.