“The growth in the first quarter was drastically lowered at 3.9 percent this year,” said Yongky Susilo, an expert with the Indonesian Retailers Association (Aprindo), on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the annual year growth was recorded at 7.7 percent, last year, he added.

The weakening growth was mainly caused by the reluctance of middle class consumers to spend their money due to the aggressive tax policies and the socio-political turmoil, which began in the fourth quarter, last year. "The economy is healthy, but consumers just don’t have appetite to spend money," Yongky said.

Yongky, however, said the second quarter had shown a hope of recovery as the growth in April had reached 5.5 percent and the first three weeks of May had reached 9.3 percent.

“As Lebaran is coming, we hope we can achieve 12 percent growth this month,” he said.

“We also expect to get double digit growth back in the third and fourth quarter so we can achieve nine to 10 percent annual growth,” he added.

Aprindo deputy chairman Tutum Rahanta said sales in Lebaran would definitely increase, but he did not know if it would reach the expectation. “We must work hard in the next 20 days. Usually if we do not do well in Lebaran, we face problems the rest of the year,” he said. (dis/bbn)

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