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Consumer spending is continuing to drive Indonesia’s economy, with telecommunications firms leading the gains in major companies’ results through September this year. The commodities and energy sectors, however, still suffered from the impact of the global financial crisis and high lending rates.

“Although the economy is slowing down, growth is still there,” Fauzi Ichsan, an economist at Standard Chartered bank in Jakarta, said on Friday. “It is weaker than last year but still positive. This is helping the corporate and banking sectors to greater profitability.”

The nation’s largest telcom operator, PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia, announced on Friday that its net profit in the first nine months of 2009 had risen by 4.3 percent to Rp 9.3 trillion ($974 million) on higher sales and foreign exchange gains in a highly competitive market. Sales rose 5.5 percent to Rp 47.1 trillion.

Dang Maulida, an analyst at PT Indo Premier Securities, said low inflation had helped bolster domestic consumption, which boosted the company’s results.

“Telkom in general performed better than its competitors. As the incumbent leader of the industry, it has adequate cash flow to finance its capital expenditure and to support its network expansion,” she said .

Telkom’s subscriber base rose by 10 million, or 13 percent, to 86 million as of the end of September, from 76 million at the end of June, while competitor PT Indosat fell 3.7 million, or 11.4 percent, to 28.7 million.

The net income of smaller player PT Excelcomindo Pratama also rose in the period to Rp 1.2 trillion from Rp 891 billion in the year-earlier period. Other consumer-oriented including cement producers and cigarettes sectors also performed well.

A slow response from commercial banks to lower lending rates partly caused profit to fall at PT Astra International, the holding company of the country’s largest auto distributors, according to an analyst. It posted Rp 7.1 trillion in earnings through September, compared with Rp 7.4 trillion in the same period in 2008.

“Lending rates fall so slowly. It has been the country’s problem since early this year,” said Edwin Sinaga, president director of brokerage PT Finan Corpindo Nusa. “The slight fall in Astra’s profit was mostly due to that factor.”

Lending rates have failed to track cuts to the key base rate by the central bank this year, and the current lending rates are at 12 percent to 16 percent, according to September data from the central bank.

The energy and commodities sectors also took a hit, with state-owned PT Aneka Tambang (Antam), the country’s second-largest nickel producer, booking a 57 percent drop in profit, which Edwin said was mostly due to the falling prices of global commodities and slower demand.

Antam joined two other nickel miners, PT Timah and PT International Nickel Indonesia, which also had lower net earnings this year.

On the nation’s economic outlook, Edwin said he was worried about the threat of inflation next year, and the possibility of Bank Indonesia hiking its key rate.

“A rebound in global commodity prices may be good for some energy and mining firms, but it will cost the overall economy more because it affects inflation,” he said.