CIDISS. The Government’s efforts finally paid off in the midst of an uncertain global economy, efforts to suppress imports and increase fruitful export surplus trade balance at the September closing, from data collected from the Central Statistics Agency, the trade balance surplus in September 2018 amounted to USD 227.1 million.
At the close of trading two before the trade balance experienced a deficit, in August 2018 the trade balance deficit was USD 944 million, while in July the deficit was USD 2.01 billion.
Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said, despite having a surplus, this was more due to the declining imports. While exports are still not in line with expectations. “Imports are starting to decline from exports, although it is still weakening. It has not increased to the level we expected. We hope it will continue to increase,” said Sri Mulyani when she was met by a media crew in the Indonesian Parliament on Monday (10/15/2018). According to him, the surplus in the trade balance has shown a positive trend and it is expected that the current account deficit (CAD) can be maintained until the end of the year.
While on another occasion the Governor of Bank Indonesia (BI) Perry Warjiyo said, the surplus in the trade balance is the initial signs that lead to improved development. “Although in the short term in the third quarter CAD has not been able to drop dramatically there may be a higher tendency than the second quarter. But in 2019 we confirm our CAD estimate in 2019 is around 2.5 percent. If this year it remains below 3 percent, but leads to 3 percent, “he said. Regarding export growth which tends to slow down, Perry explained, demand for coal and other commodities besides crude palm oil (CPO) still tends to be low. Plus, most of the demand for these commodities comes from China. “With Tiingkok’s economic growth slowing it is only natural that the demand for commodities is slowing down but we are also grateful that our exports are rising only indeed to boost even higher if only relying on commodities is rather difficult,” Perry explained on the same occasion.
For information, BPS recorded a trade balance surplus of 0.23 billion US dollars. The surplus in the non-oil and gas sector was due to a decline in exports by 6.58 percent compared to August 2018. The value dropped by 13.62 billion US dollars.
By: Rikky, S *)