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Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesian shares are expected to open higher on Monday, tracking gains on Wall Street on Friday after investors started to believe the impact of the global credit crisis on the U.S. economy may not be as severe as earlier feared.

"Gains on Wall Street on Friday and regional markets this morning should help lift our market today," Paramitra Alfa Securities analyst Pardomuan Sihombing told Thomson Financial.

However, he noted that the market's rise may be limited on caution ahead of the central bank's interest rate policy meeting tomorrow, which was originally planned for Thursday.

On Friday, the government announced that the consumer price index (CPI) rose 8.96 percent in April from a year ago and was up 0.57 percent from March, driven by a rise in the kerosene price. In March, inflation rose 8.17 percent from a year earlier and was up 0.95 percent from February.

The April CPI figure was largely within market expectations. Ten economists polled by Thomson Financial had forecast an annual rise of 8.5 percent to 9.0 percent, and a month-on-month increase of between 0.2 percent and 0.5 percent.

Most analysts do not expect the April inflation data to prompt a rate hike by Bank Indonesia at tomorrow's monthly policy meeting. They said a rate hike will not be the right prescription for reining in inflation at this time, which is supply rather than demand-driven.

On Friday the composite index closed up 38.24 points or 1.7 percent at 2,342.76 on a volume of 3.05 billion shares worth 5.06 trillion rupiah ($547.93 million).

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