The government plans to revise its export target in the 2014 fiscal year from US$190 billion to $180
he government plans to revise its export target in the 2014 fiscal year from US$190 billion to $180.5 billion because of the decreasing price of crude palm oil (CPO), Trade Minister Muhammad Lutfi said.
Lutfi said that the target could even be lowered farther to below $179 billion, which was what was achieved through the 2013 fiscal year.
'CPO is one of the country's main export commodities. We need to look at the situation [concerning the price of CPO] in the next two weeks. If we do not find any breakthrough in resolving this problem, we have to revise the target,' he said in Jakarta on Thursday, as quoted by Antara news agency.
He said that the price of CPO has been decreasing since the first month of the year when it was $920 per metric ton. Since then, the price continued to decrease to the $726 per metric ton it is at present.
Lutfi, however, was optimistic that the country's export performance would get better next year since the structure of industry in the country has been improved. That could be seen by the rising imports of capital goods and intermediary materials to Indonesia, he added.
'When we invest in those goods [capital and intermediary], we are going to get more benefits in the next two to three years because we add more values to the goods that we export,' he explained.
On Wednesday the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) announced that Indonesia's trade balance suffered a $318.1 million deficit throughout August 2014.
Cumulatively, the country suffered a $1.41 billion deficit during the January to August period this year. (nfo)(++++)
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