JAKARTA ~ The government hopes to maintain economic growth at the 6.1 percent it reached in the fourth quarter of 2006, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said this week.

“Economic growth reached 6.1 percent in the last quarter of 2006. We will try our best to keep it at the same level in 2007,” she told a hearing with a parliamentary commission, the official Antara news agency reported.

Indonesia posted economic growth of 5.5 percent in 2006, short of the government’s original target of 6.2 percent.

“We have seen that economic growth in the first quarter of 2006 was very low as a result of the increase in the prices of fuel oils at home. In the long run, we would see the development, which at present has reached 6.1 percent,” Indrawati said.

The Central Bureau of Statistics said the lower-than-forecast growth in the 2006 figure released on Friday was largely due to a slow first half, when the economy was still feeling the effects of a large fuel price hike in October 2005.