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Bank Central Asia, Indonesia’s largest lender by market value, forecasts lending growth to slow next year, which would reflect a slowdown in the country’s economic expansion.

Lending growth is expected to grow at 21 percent in 2012, compared with an estimated 27 percent increase this year, BCA’s president director, Jahja Setiaatmadja, said in an interview at the bank’s Jakarta headquarters on Wednesday.

That 27 percent growth forecast, which exceeds the original target of 22 percent, would put BCA’s total outstanding loans at Rp 190 trillion ($21 billion).

“If economic growth is set at 6.5 percent, then loan growth at BCA is three times more than economic growth,’’ said the 56-year-old Jahja, who was installed as the lender’s chief executive officer in July, replacing Djohan Emir Setijoso.

The forecast for next year is lower than the target set by Bank Indonesia for a 27 percent increase in lending at the country’s commercial banks. Low borrowing costs have encouraged consumers to take out loans, even before the central bank cut its key interest rate in November and October to a record low.

The central bank forecast lending by the country’s commercial banks to grow by 27 percent next year from an estimated 24 percent this year.

It reduced its economic growth forecast for Indonesia to 6.3 percent next year from its previous target of 6.7 percent to reflect a possible slowdown in the global economy. It has called on commercial banks to boost lending to spur domestic economic growth.

Jahja said mortgage loans at BCA may have expanded by 50 percent this year on strong demand by consumers. The value of housing loans may have risen to Rp 27 trillion from Rp 18 trillion last year. “That would represent around 20 percent of total outstanding loans,” he said.

The bank’s main targets for loans, he said, will include companies in the mining, plantation and resource sectors.

The bank spent Rp 189 billion for a 75 percent stake in Dinamika Usahajaya, a brokerage company, this year.

That was BCA’s first foray into financial services since it bought control of Bank UIB, a small-sized lender, for Rp 248.3 billion in 2009. BCA turned the lender into BCA Syariah last year.

“We will rename it BCA Sekuritas,” Jahja said, referring to Dinamika Usahajaya .

A number of Indonesian lenders have sought acquisitions in the country in the past year, bowing to an appeal by the central bank to improve efficiency.

BCA, with a loan-to-deposit ratio of 60 percent, reported an increase in net income in the first nine months this year on rising loan demand by Indonesian consumers and corporations.

The bank is partly controlled by Djarum Group, one of the country’s biggest conglomerates, with businesses ranging from cigarette manufacturing to hotel management.

Djarum Group, controlled by the Hartono family, controls 47.5 percent of BCA. The group bought the stake in 2002 from the Indonesian Banking Restructuring Agency, a state agency set up in response to the 1998 Asian financial crisis.