Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa told reporters at a Finance Ministry media gathering on Friday that GDP growth in the fourth quarter would exceed 5.5 percent year-on-year (yoy) on the back of government spending and liquidity injection.

“We expect a turnaround of economic growth,” said Purbaya, adding that 5.5 percent was to be the “first step into an era of faster economic growth”.

Economic activity, the government hopes, will benefit from last months’ decision to move Rp 200 trillion (US$12 billion) in state funds from Bank Indonesia (BI) to state-owned commercial banks, who were instructed to use them exclusively for issuing loans and not for buying bonds.

The extra liquidity comes with a cheaper cost of funds at just 80 percent of the central bank’s interest rate. Purbaya has described the measure as an initiative to “bring the money back into the system.”

The ministry’s economy and fiscal strategy director general Febrio Kacaribu revealed at the same event on Thursday that the banks had turned the majority of the funds into loans, with Mandiri, BRI and BNI having disbursed 74, 62 and 50 percent of the funds, respectively, even though BTN and BSI had only reached 19 and 15 percent.

Purbaya estimated last month that credit growth from the maneuver would start to materialize within a month and claimed that Mandiri’s loan growth had since increased from 8 percent yoy to 11 percent yoy.