By I Made Sentana 

JAKARTA--Bank Indonesia will likely keep its interest rates unchanged on Thursday amid expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve will slow down its tightening pace this year.

All of the 10 economists polled by The Wall Street Journal expect the central bank to keep the benchmark 7-day reverse repo rate at 6.0% also because the global economic growth this year isn't expected to be as rosy as predicted earlier.

Economists mostly view Bank Indonesia's total 1.75 percentage points tightening last year including the latest quarter point increase in November, as being sufficient to stem the outflow from rupiah assets and rein in current-account deficit.

Bank Indonesia Governor Perry Warjiyo said last week that the benchmark rate was already near its peak and the rate increase in November had taken into account the next Fed's rate increase which may come by March.

"We expect the BI 7-day reverse repo rate to be maintained at 6.0%," said Maybank Indonesia's economist Juniman. Keeping interest rates unchanged at the current levels will help underpin rupiah's stability, Mr. Juniman said.

Write to I Made Sentana at i-made.sentana@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 16, 2019 00:32 ET (05:32 GMT)