JAKARTA, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) --- Indonesia's economy expanded slightly year as exports grew significantly amid rising commodity prices.
The national statistics bureau said on Monday that the gross domestic product accelerated 5.07 percent last year, the highest since 2014 and slightly higher than that of 5.03 percent in 2016.
In the fourth quarter the economy expanded 5.19 percent compared with 5.06 percent during the same period of last year.
"We are optimistic. Hopefully the economy will improve further as construction of infrastructure persists," head of the bureau Kecuk Suhariyanto said.
The Indonesian central bank aggressively applied easing monetary policy that help boost consumer spending of about 5 percent last year, according to the bureau.
Shipment of Indonesian product to overseas grew 8.5 percent in the final quarter as rising demand and prices of commodities, the major exported product from the country, soars.
Government development budget spending expanded 3.8 percent in the period from a year ago, according to the government data.
In December, retail sales grew 3.4 percent from a year ago, it said.
For 2018 the government has expected the Southeast Asia's biggest economy to expand 5.4 percent amid many international events and polls at the provincial level, which all of them are estimated to help spur consumer spending, which account for over halve of the country's GDP growth.
President Joko Widodo, who came into office in 2014, has constructed massive infrastructure facilities to create more jobs and boost economic efficiency in the vast archipelagic nation as he expects over 7-percent GDP growth at the end of his five-year term.
