The central bank has left its key interest rate unchanged for the third straight month, Bank Indonesia (BI) senior deputy governor Miranda Goeltom said this week.

The decision takes into account the central bank’s view that uncertainty over the US subprime crisis will prevail in global financial markets, “which therefore requires consistency in our cautious stance,” Goeltom said.

Before it paused in its series of cuts in July, BI had reduced its key rate, known as the BI rate, by a cumulative 450 basis points since May 2006 to 8.25 percent.