REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BANDUNG -- Indonesia's non-oil/gas industry grew 5.56 percent in the first quarter of this year exceeding the country's economic growth of 5.21 percent, an official said.

"We are optimistic the country's industrial growth would cross the 6 percent level this year," secretary general of the industry ministry Anshari Bukhari said here on Sunday.

The industry ministry has set a growth target of 6.5 percent for the country's industrial sector in 2014.

"Even if there was a shortfall from the target the growth would not be less than 6 percent," Anshari said when inspecting an Indonesian Production Fair.

He said a number of industries such as food and beverage processing industry, transport equipment industry, machine and equipment industry and farm and plantation-based industries are expected to grow strongly.

"The regulation banning exports of mineral ore and coal would have its impact on the growth of metal industry," he predicted.

He said the investment sectors both foreign and domestic investment is expected to grow especially as foreign fund is still continuing to flow into the country.

The domestic consumption will also continue to grow and high value of the US dollar against rupiah would stimulate exports of products of agro-industry, he said.

"This makes us optimistic that the industrial growth would reach at least 6 percent," Anshari said.

Based on data at the industry ministry, industrial sectors leading in growth in the first quarter were food, beverage and tobacco industry growing 9.47 percent, transport equipment, machine and equipment industry growing 6.03 percent), and timber product and foreign produce industry growing 5.17 percent.

Meanwhile, domestic investment in the industrial sector in the first quarter grew 1.73 percent to Rp11.11 trillion and foreign investment fell 23.47 percent to US$3.49 billion on-year.

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