Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Jakarta composite index (JCI) extended gain closing 0.66 percent higher on Wednesday on expectation of policy package to be announced by the government.

The index of the Indonesian Stock Exchange (BEI) rose 28.26 points to close at 4,347.27 points with the index of 45 most liquid stocks up 0.77 percent to 732.23 points.

"Domestic sentiment was one of the factor driving the JCI back to the positive territory. There is positive market expectation that the policy package would boost economic growth in the third quarter of this year," Kiswoyo Adi Joe, an analyst from Investa Saran Mandiri, said here.

Kiswoyo said the policy package which is expected to facilitate economic activities and investment and at the same time to maintain the purchasing power of the people succeeded in offsetting the negative external sentiment from the Feds plan to raise its fund rate.

"The market is expected to appreciate the government policy for mid to long term," he said.

In general, investment in the stock market is quite encouraging as the prices of the majority of the shares are quite low, he said.

Chief researcher of Universal Broker Indonesia Satrio Utomo said the JCI gain tended to be limited as foreign investors are still selling shares.

The trade on Wednesday was marked with foreign net sell of Rp428.415 billion .

"Share sales by foreign investors curbed the JCI from rising higher . In addition some of the market players chose to wait and see until the government announced its policy package," Satrio said.

There were 252,580 transactions on Wednesday with 3.77 billion shares valued at Rp4.29 trillion changing hands.

Gainers outnumbered decliners by 175 shares to 116 shares with 88 shares remaining unchanged.

Regional markets such as Hang Seng , Nikkei and Straits Times recorded gain in index.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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